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KING ARTHUR’S CASTLE. (Page 12.) 










A CHILD’S HISTORY 
OF ENGLAND 


BY 

CHARLES DICKENS 


GMttl) ^lustrations from J)l)otocj;rapj)S bp 
Clifton ijoljnson 



TRAFALGAR SQUARE 

•) j 

* ’ * 

)) ) 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
(£be HtOcrsiOc pre?0, Cambridge 

M DCCC XCVIII 













■H 5 

i ^lf 


COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY IIOUGnTON MIFFLIN & CO 



(< 4 - 


1»t COF, . 
1898 . 


* JL 


CONTENTS 


V 


J 


[including chronological table of a child’s history of 

ENGLAND.] 

Page 

Introduction .xi 

Table of the Reigns of the Kings .xv 

A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Chap. 

I. Ancient England and the Romans. From 50 years before 

Christ to the year of our Lord 450 .1 

II. Ancient England under the Early Saxons. From the 

year 450 to the year 871.10 

III. England under the Good Saxon Alfred. From the year 

871 to the year 901.15 

IV. England under Atiielstan and the Six Boy-Kings. 

From the year 925 to the year 1016.21 

V. England under Canute the Dane. From the year 1016 

to the year 1035 32 

VI. England under Harold. Harepoot, Hardicanute, and 
Edward the Confessor. From the year 1035 to the 
year 1066 . 34 

VII. England under Harold the Second, and conquered 

by the Normans. All in the same year, 1066 . 42 

VIII. England under William, the Fjr-sit,' the Norman Con¬ 
queror. From the year 1066 t<? the year 1087 . 47 

IX. England under William tiie Second, called Rufus. 

From the year 1087 to the year 1100 .54 

v - %/ 

'• .. * • 1 

X. England under Henry the First, called Fine-Sciiolar. 

From the vear 1100 to the year 1135.61 

XI. England under Matilda and Stephen. From the year 

1135 to the year 1154.71 

XII. England under Henry tiie Second. From the year 1154 

to the year 1189. Parts First and Second .75 

XIII. England under Richard tiie Fprst, called tiie Lion- 

Heart. From the year 1189 to the year 1199'.94 

XIV. England under King John, called Lackland. From the 

year 1199 to the year 1216.103 

I* 

J • 


















IV 


CONTENTS 


XV. England under Henry the Third, called Henry the 
Third of Winchester. From the year 1216 to the year 

1272 . 115 

XVI. England under Edward the First, called Longshanks. 

From the year 1272 to the year 1307 . 127 

XVII. England under Edward the Second. From the year 1307 

to the year 1327 .1^3 

XVIII. England under Edward the Third. From the year 1327 

to the year 1377 .153 

XIX. England under Richard the Second. From the year 

1377 to the year 1399 165 

XX. England under Henry the Fourth, called Boling- 

broke. From the year 1399 to the year 1413 . 176 

XXI. England under Henry the Fifth. From the year 1413 to 

the year 1422. Parts First and Second .182 

XXII. England under Henry the Sixth. From the year 1422 to 
the year 1461. Parts First , Second ( the Story of Joan of 
Arc ), and Third .192 

XXIII. England under Edward the Fourth. From the year 1461 

to the year 1483 . 211 

XXIV. England under Edward the Fifth. For a few weeks in 

the year 1483 219 

XXV. England under Richard the Third. From the year 1483 

to the year 1485 . 224 

XXVI. England under Henry the Seventh. From the year 1485 

to the year 1509 . 229 

XXVII. England under Henry the Eighth, called Bluff King 
Hal, and Burly King Harry. From the year 1509 to the 
year 1533. Part First .239 

XXVIII. England under Henry the Eighth. From the year 1533 

to the year 1547. Part Second .251 

XXIX. England under Edward the Sixth. From the year 1547 

to the year 1553 . 261 

XXX. England under Mary. From the year 1553 to the year 1558. 269 

XXXI. England under Elizabeth. From the year 1558 to the year 

1603. Parts First, Second, and, Third .281 

XXXII. England under James the First. From the year 1603 to 

the year 1625. Parts First and Second .,305 

XXXIII. England under Charles the First. From the year 1625 

to the year 1649. Parts First , Second , Third, and Fourth . . 321 

XXXIV. England under Oliver Cromwell. From the year 1649 to 

the year 1660. Parts First and Second .349 

XXXV. England under Charles the Second, called the 
Merry Monarch. From the year 1060 to the year 1685. 
Parts First and Second . 36D 






















J 


CONTENTS V 

XXXYI. England under James tiie Second. From the year 1G85 

to the year 1688 . 386 

XXXVII. Conclusion. From the year 1688 to the year 1837 . 399 

\ 








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

-♦- 

King Arthur’s Castle (page 12). Frontispiece 

Nelson Lion, Trafalgar Square, London (Vignette on Title ) 

Stonehenge . 4 

The .Wall of Severus.12 

Remnant of Roman Military Road between Dover and 

Chester .32 

Stamford Bridge.42 

St. Michael’s Mount, Normandy.56 

William Rufus Stone, where the King fell in New Forest 60 

Winchester.72 

Canterbury Cathedral . 84 

An Old Street in Rouen.90 

Woodstock.92 

Falaise Castle.104 

Runny-mead.112 

St. Paul’s from Waterloo Bridge.. . 116 

Sussex Downs near Lewes.124 

Carnarvon Castle . . . ..132 

Stirling Castle.140 

Douglas Castle.144 

Bannockburn.148 

Kenilworth Castle.150 

The Battlefield of Crecy.156 

Windsor Castle.164 

Tower of London.172 

























Vlll 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Shrewsbury Battlefield.ITS 

Joan of Arc Statue, Rouen.200 

Gate in the Walls of York.20S 

York Minster from the Old Walls.212 

Bosworth Field.22G 

Flodden Battlefield.240 

Field of the Cloth of Gold.244 

Smithfield. 252 

Ket’s Hill, Norwich.264 

Old Hatfield House.276 

Linlithgow Palace, Birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots . 282 

Holyrood Palace.284 

Lochleven Castle.288 

St. Paul’s Churchyard.292 

Westminster, Houses of Parliament.296 

Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Stratford on Avon.304 

Gate House, Westminster.316 

Whitehall. 334 

Tower of the Old Castle, Oxford.338 

Westminster, Houses of Parliament.344 

Drogheda.350 

St. Giles’s.368 

Bothwell Bridge.378 

Edinburgh Castle.388 

WappTng — Old Stairs.396 

























NOTE ON THE ILLIJSTBATIONS. 


—♦— 

The illustrations for the present edition of A Child’s History 
of England were all made especially for the hook on the scene 
of the events described. The famous old towns, battlefields, 
cathedrals, and castles are here shown just as they exist to-day. 
In the interests of this work, each summer for the past three 
years I have crossed the Atlantic, and journeyed extensively 
through England and Scotland, and made lesser tours to Wales, 
Ireland, and France. Incidentally the pictures have many 
touches of life both in town and in country, and they give a 
very good idea of the natural scenery of the countries mentioned. 

Travellers from all parts of the world visit these historic 
spots. This edition in its illustrations takes the reader to the 
notable places as well as to many more obscure that one with 
the time and money would gladly visit. It is believed that 
this combination of history and travel in the pictures will make 
this edition of the Childs History unusually entertaining and 
of permanent worth. 


Septe?7ibe7', 1898. 


CLIFTON JOHNSON. 









INTRODUCTION 


In 1843, when his oldest hoy had reached the mature age of 
five, Dickens, eager to start him right as a young Englishman, 
undertook to write a history of England for him, intending to 
print it, hut whether or no any of it got into print, he did not 
finish the production then. “It is curious,” he says, when 
mentioning what he was about to Douglas Jerrold, “that I 
have tried to impress upon him (writing, I dare say, at the 
same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper, for I 
don’t know what I should do if he were to get hold of any 
Conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of 
guarding against any such horrible result is, I take it, to wring 
the parrots’ necks in his very cradle.” No doubt also his very 
lively interest in the education of the poor at this time, in 
ragged schools and in Miss Coutts’s charities, stimulated his 
zeal. 

He laid the unfinished task aside and resumed it a little 
more than seven years later. He had eight children now, 
which made seven more arguments, and he was undertaking 
not only to edit “Household Words,” but to add to its pres¬ 
tige by contributions from his own pen. So, partly while 
“Bleak House” was running its course as a separate serial by 
itself, he was publishing at irregular intervals in “Household 
Words,” “A Child’s History of England,” which began in the 
number for January 25, 1851, in the second volume of the 
journal, and was completed in the number for December 10, 
1853. As a book, it was published originally in three separate 
volumes, in the years 1852, 1853, and 1854. 

In composing the book Dickens departed from his uniform 
rule, and dictated the chapters. He had little to say about the 
task in letters to his friends, but a brief reference to it when 



/ 



Xll 


INTRODUCTION 


sending the completed book to Marcus Stone, sums up his 
judgment: “I believe it to be true, though it may he some¬ 
times not as genteel as history has the habit of being ; ” and ten 
years later when defending himself against the charge of wrong¬ 
ing the Jews in his hooks, he wrote: “I always speak well of 
them, whether in public or in private, and bear my testimony 
(as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transac¬ 
tions as I have ever had with them; and in my £ Child’s His¬ 
tory of England ’ I have lost no opportunity of setting forth 
their cruel persecution in old times. ” 

Its adaptation to the needs of children lies in its lively 
narrative form, and the picturesqueness of many of the scenes 
which it presents, and there are many generous as there are 
a great many frank passages, interpretative of character. But 
Dickens was scarcely the man to suppress his individual taste 
in such a work, and the sentence above from his letter to Jer- 
rold intimates one element in the book, its violent temper over 
every expression of ecclesiasticism. After his own manner of 
labelling a person, he always speaks of James I. as his Sowship, 
helping himself to a contemporary nickname, and when he has 
to do with Henry VIII., starts out with calling him “one of 
the most detestable villains that ever drew breath.” Neverthe¬ 
less, though this is scarcely the way to lead ingenuous youth 
to form their own judgments in history, it is open and above¬ 
board, and in such a passage as the murder of Thomas h 
Becket, Dickens is not only dramatic and forcible but very 
free from the cruelty which from his detestation of the man 
one might almost look for. 


TABLE OF THE FEIGNS OF THE KINGS 


Beginning with King Alfred the Great 


THE SAXONS 


The Reign of Alfred the j b in 
Great.J & 

The Reign of Edward the \ , 

ElderT.{ began in 


The Reign of Athelstan . began in 
The Reigns of the Six I b in 
Hoy-Kings . . . . ) b 


871 

901 

925 

941 


ended in 901 

ended in 925 
ended in 941 
ended in 1016 


and lasted 30 years. 

and lasted 24 years, 
and lasted 16 years, 
and lasted 75 years. 


THE DANES, AND THE RESTORED SAXONS 
The Reign of Canute . . began in 1016 . ended in 1035 . and lasted 19 years. 

Tl ilare I foot U ° f Hai ’° ld j began in 1035 . ended in 1040 . and lasted 5 years. 

The Reign of Hardicanute began in 1040 . ended in 1042 . and lasted 2 years. 

TI CoSeIor° J . E ^T d . th ! ! be S an in 1042 • endc<l in 1006 • a " d lasted 24 years. 

The Reign of Harold the Second and the Norman Conquest were also 

within the year 1066. 


THE NORMANS 


The Reign of William the 1 
First, called the Con- : 

queror.j 

The Reign of William the ) 
Second, called Rufus . f 
The Reign of Henry the ) 
First, called Fine-Scho- !> 
lar. J 


began in 


began in 


began in 


1066 

1087 

1100 


The Reigns of Matilda and j b in 1135 
Stephen. ) & 


ended in 1087 


ended in 1100 


ended in 1135 


ended in 1154 


and lasted 21 years, 
and lasted 13 years, 
and lasted 35 years, 
and lasted 19 years. 


THE PLANTAGENETS 

The Reign of Henry the ) ^ e g an j n 1154 # ended in 1189 . and lasted 35 years. 
Second.) 

The Reign of Richard the ) 

First, called the Lion- > began in 1189 . ended in 1199 . and lasted 10 years. 
Heart.j 








XIV 


TABLE OF THE REIGNS 


THE PLANTAGENETS — {Continued) 

^Laddand. 0 * ca ^ ec * j began in 1199 . ended in 3216 . and lasted 17 years. 

T *Thinl ign Henr ' tllG | began in 1216 . ended in 1272 . and lasted 56 years. 

The Reign of Edward the 3 

First, called Long- > began in 1272 . ended in 1307 . and lasted 35 years, 

shanks . j 

3 'second' 1 ^ dward tbe j began in 1307 . ended in 1327 . and lasted 20 years. 

TI TIi W S " ° f Edward tlle J began in 1327 . ended in 1377 . and lasted 50 years. 

T Se?onf .° £ . Ei ? hard . th ! j be S an in 1377 ' ended in IS® • a " d lasted 22 years. 

The Reign of Henry the 3 

Fourth, called Boling- > began in 1399 . ended in 1413 . and lasted 14 years, 

broke.) 

^Fifth. 6 '^ 11 ^ 6nr ^ tbe | began in 1413 . ended in 1422 . and lasted 9 years. 

^Sixth^ n ^ eni " tbe | began in 1422 . ended in 1461 . and lasted 39 years. 

^^Fo^rtlf 11 ^ dward tbe | began in 1461 . ended in 1483 . and lasted 22 years. 

T hejReign.° £ Edward the j bega „ in 14g3 _ ended jn 1483 . j an ^ e j^ ted a 

T l>e Eeign of Kichard the J began jn 1483 _ ended in 1485 . and Jasted 2 yem 

THE TUDORS 

^Seventh' 1 ^ 6nr ^ ^ ie | began in 1485 . ended in 1509 . and lasted 24 years. 

^Ei"htlf n ^ Gni “ ^ ie | began in 1509 . ended in 1547 . and lasted 38 years. 

^Sixth^* 1 ^ dward tbe | began in 1547 . ended in 1553 . and lasted 6 years. 

The Reign of Mary . . began in 1553 . ended in 3558 . and lasted 5 years. 

The Reign of Elizabeth . began in 1558 . ended in 1603 . and lasted 45 }'ears. 

THE STUARTS 

Th FirS eiSn ° f Jam6S the | began in 1603 * encIed in 1625 • and ]asted 22 3’ ears< 

d *^irg^ e *^ n ^ bai ^ es tbe | began in 1625 . ended in 1649 . and lasted 24 years. 

THE COMMONWEALTH 
The Council of State and ) 

Government by Parlia- > began in 1649 . ended in 1653 . and lasted 4 years, 

ment.j 

T CV E n 0 wen 0ra,e . 0£0li . VC l | be 6 an iu 1653 • ™ dad 1658 ■ a " d lasted 5 years 

















TABLE OF THE REIGNS 


xv 


THE COMMONWEALTH — ( Continued) 


The Protectorate of Rich¬ 
ard Cromwell. . . . 
The Council of State and 
Government by Parlia¬ 
ment . 


| began in 1658 . . ended in 1659 j ^^onths^ Seven 

1 resumed in 1659 . ended in 1660 \ an( * thirteen 

\ { months. 


THE STUARTS RESTORED 

^'seconcf 11 ^ ai ^ es ^ ie | began in 1660 . ended in 1685 . and lasted 25 years 
* 'ggcond 11 ^ ameS ^ ie | began in 1685 . ended in 1688 . and lasted 3 years, 


THE REVOLUTION —1688 

COMPRISED IX THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER 


The Reign of William the \ 

Third and Mary the !> began in 1689 . ended in 1695 . and lasted 6 years. 
Second.) 


The Reign of William the 

Third. 

The Reign of Anne . . 
The Reign of George the 

First. .. 

The Reign of George the 
Second. 


began in 1702 . 
began in 1714 . 

began in 1727 . 


ended in 1702 . and lasted 13 years, 
ended in 1714 . and lasted 12 years, 
ended in 1727 . and lasted 13 years. 

ended in 1760 . and lasted 33 years. 


The Reign of George the 
Third. 


began in 1760 


ended in 1820 . and lasted 60 years. 


T^Keign of Geoige the j j )e g an j n ig20 . ended in 1830 . and lasted 10 years. 
The Reign of W illiam the j | 3e g an j n ^830 . ended in 1837 . and lasted 7 years. 

-Tomtu • • • • • • j 

The Reign of Victoria . began in 1837., 
















A CHILD S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER I 

ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS 

If you look at a map of the world, you will see, in the left- 
hand upper comer of the Eastern Hemisphere, two islands 
lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ire¬ 
land. England and Scotland form the greater part of these 
islands. Ireland is the next in size. The little neighbouring 
islands, which are so small upon the map as to be mere dots, 
are chiefly little bits of Scotland, —broken off, I dare say, in 
the course of a great length of time, by the power of the rest¬ 
less water. 

In the old days, a long, long while ago, before our Saviour 
was born on earth, and lay asleep in a manger, these islands 
were in the same place; and the stormy sea roared round them, 
just as it roars now. But the sea was not alive then with 
great ships and brave sailors, sailing to and from all parts of 
the world. It was very lonely. The islands lay solitary in 
the great expanse of water. The foaming waves dashed against 
their cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over their forests. But 
the winds and waves brought no adventurers to land upon the 
islands; and the savage islanders knew nothing of the rest of 
the world, and the rest of the world knew nothing of them. 

It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient 
people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these 
islands, and found that they produced tin and lead; both very 
useful things, as you know, and both produced to this very 
hour upon the sea-coast. The most celebrated tin-mines in 
Cornwall are still close to the sea. One of them, which I 
have seen, is so close to it that it is hollowed out underneath 
the ocean; and the miners say that in stormy weather, when 
they are at work down in that deep place, they can hear the 


2 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


noise of the waves thundering above their heads. So the 
Phoenicians, coasting about the islands, would come, without 
much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were. 

The Phoenicians traded with the islanders for these metals, 
and gave the islanders some other useful things in exchange. 
The islanders were at first poor savages, going almost naked, 
or only dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their 
bodies, as other savages do, with coloured earths and the juices 
of plants. But the Phoenicians, sailing over to the opposite 
coasts of France and Belgium, and saying to the people there, 
“We have been to those white cliffs across the water, which 
you can see in fine weather; and from that country, which is 
called Britain, we bring this tin and lead,” tempted some of 
the French and Belgians to come over also. These people 
settled themselves on the south coast of England, which is now 
called Kent; and although they were a rough people, too, they 
taught the savage Britons some useful arts, and improved that 
part of the islands. It is probable that other people came 
over from Spain to Ireland, and settled there. 

Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the 
islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold 
people; almost savage still, especially in the interior of the 
country, away from the sea, where the foreign settlers seldom 
went; but hardy, brave, and strong. 

The whole country was covered with forests and swamps. 
The greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were 
no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would 
think deserving of the name. A town was nothing but a 
collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with 
a ditch all round, and a low wall made of mud or the trunks 
of trees placed one upon another. The people planted little 
or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. 
They made no coins, but used metal rings for money. They 
were clever in basket-work, as savage people often are; and 
they could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad 
earthenware. But in building fortresses they were much more 
clever. 

They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of 
animals, but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. 
They made swords of copper mixed with tin; but these swords 
were of an awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


3 


would bend one. They made light shields; short, pointed 
daggers; and spears, which they jerked back, after they had 
thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened 
to the stem. The butt end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy’s 
horse. The ancient Britons, being divided into as many as 
thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little king, 
were constantly fighting with one another, as savage people 
usually do; and they always fought with these weapons. 

They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was 
the picture of a white horse. They could break them in and 
manage them wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which 
they had an abundance, though they were rather small) were 
so well taught in those days that they can scarcely be said to 
have improved since; though the men are so much wiser. 
They understood and obeyed every word of command; and 
would stand still by themselves, in all the din and noise of 
battle, while their masters went to fight on foot. The Britons 
could not have succeeded in their most remarkable art without 
the aid of these sensible and trusty animals. The art I mean 
is the construction and management of war chariots or cars; 
for which they have ever been celebrated in history. Each of 
the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast-high in front, 
and open at the back, contained one man to drive, and two or 
three others to fight, — all standing up. The horses who drew 
them were so well trained that they would tear, at full gallop, 
over the most stony ways, and even through the woods; dash¬ 
ing down their masters’ enemies beneath their hoofs, and cut¬ 
ting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, 
which were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond 
the car on each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, 
while at full speed, the horses would stop at the driver’s 
command. The men within would leap out, deal blows about 
them with their swords, like hail, leap on the horses, on the 
pole, spring back into the chariots anyhow; and as soon as 
they were safe, the horses tore away again. 

The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the 
religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, 
in very early times, indeed, from the opposite country of 
Erance, anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the 
worship of the Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the 
worship of some of the heathen gods and goddesses. Most of 


4 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests, — the Druids, 
— who pretended to be enchanters, and who carried magicians’ 
wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, what he told 
the ignorant people was a serpent’s egg in a golden case. But 
it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice 
of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, 
on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense 
wicker cages, of a number of men and animals together. The 
Druid priests had some kind of veneration for the oak, and for 
the mistletoe (the same plant that we hang up in houses at 
Christmas-time now) when its white berries grew upon the oak. 
They met together in dark woods, which they called sacred 
groves; and there they instructed in their mysterious arts 
young men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes 
stayed with them as long as twenty years. 

These Druids built great temples and altars, open to the 
sky, fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stone¬ 
henge, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, is the most extraordi¬ 
nary of these. Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, 
on Bluebell Hill, near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. 
We know, from examination of the great blocks of which such 
buildings are made, that they could not have been raised with¬ 
out the aid of some ingenious machines which are common 
now, but which the ancient Britons certainly did not use in 
making their own uncomfortable houses. I should not wonder 
if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with them twenty 
years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept the 
people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then 
pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had 
a hand in the fortresses, too; at all events, as they were very 
powerful, and very much believed in, and as they made and 
executed the laws, and paid no taxes, I don’t wonder that they 
liked their trade. And, as they persuaded the people the 
more Druids there were the better off the people would be, I 
don’t wonder that there were a good many of them. But it 
is pleasant to think that there are no Druids now , who go on in 
that way, and pretend to carry enchanters’ wands and serpents’ 
eggs; and, of course, there is nothing of the kind anywhere. 

Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons 
fifty-five years before the birth of our Saviour, when the 
Komans, under their great general, Julius Caesar, were masters 


I 



STONEHENGE 










A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


5 


of all the rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had then 
just conquered Gaul; and hearing in Gaul a good deal about 
the opposite island with the white cliffs, and about the bra¬ 
very of the Britons who inhabited it (some of whom had been 
fetched over to help the Gauls 'in the war against him), he 
resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer Britain next. 

So Julius Caesar came sailing over to this island of ours, 
with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came 
from the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, “because 
thence was the shortest passage into Britainjust for the 
same reason as our steamboats now take the same track every 
day. He expected to conquer Britain easily. But it was not 
such easy work as he supposed; for the"bold Britons fought 
most bravely. And what with not having his horse-soldiers 
with him (for they had been driven hack by a storm), and 
what with having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a 
high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great risk of 
being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold 
Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly 
but that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, 
and go away. 

But in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time 
with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The 
British tribes chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom 
the Homans in their Latin language called Cassivellaunus, but 
whose British name is supposed to have been Caswallon. A 
brave general he was; and well he and his soldiers fought the 
Homan army! So well that whenever in that war the Roman 
soldiers saw a great cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the 
rapid British chariots, they trembled in their hearts. Besides 
a number of smaller battles, there was a battle fought near Can¬ 
terbury, in Kent; there was a battle fought near Chertsey, in 
Surrey; there was a battle fought near a marshy little town 
in a wood, the capital of that part of Britain which belonged 
to Cassivellaunus, and which was probably near what is now 
St. Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave Cassivellaunus 
had the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men 
alwavs fought like lions. As the other British chiefs were jeal- 
ous of him, and were always quarrelling with him and with one 
another, he gave up, and proposed peace. Julius Caesar was 
very glad to grant peace easily, and to go away again with all 


G A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

his remaining ships and men. He had expected to find pearls 
in Britain, and he may have found a few for anything I know; 
hut, at all events, he found delicious oysters. And I am sure 
he found tough Britons; of whom, I dare say, he made the 
same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte, the great French gen¬ 
eral, did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said they 
were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they 
were beaten. They never did know, I believe, and never will. 

Nearly a hundred years passed on; and all that time there 
was peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and 
mode of life; became more civilised; travelled; and learned 
a great deal from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Boman 
Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius, a skilful general, with 
a mighty force, to subdue the island; and shortly afterwards 
arrived himself. They did little; and Ostorius Scapula, an¬ 
other general, came. Some of the British chiefs of tribes 
submitted. Others resolved to fight to the death. Of these 
brave men, the bravest was Caractacus, or Caradoc, who gave 
battle to the Romans with his army among the mountains of 
North Wales. “This day,” said he to his soldiers, “decides 
the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal slavery, dates 
from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who drove 
the great Caesar himself across the sea.” On hearing these 
words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the Romans. 
But the strong Roman swords and armour were too much for 
the weaker British weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost 
the day. The wife and daughter of the brave Caractacus were 
taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves up; he him¬ 
self was betrayed into the hands of the Romans by his false 
and base step-mother; and they carried him, and all his family, 
in triumph to Rome. 

But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, 
great in chains. His noble air and dignified endurance of 
distress so touched the Roman people, who thronged the streets 
to see him, that he and his family were restored to freedom. 
No one knows whether his great heart broke, and he died in 
Rome, or whether he ever returned to his own dear country. 
English oaks have grown up from acorns, and withered away 
when they were hundreds of years old, —and other oaks have 
sprung up in their places, and died too, very aged, — since the 
rest of the history of the brave Caractacus was forgotten. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


7 


Still the Britons would not yield. They rose again and 
again, and died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose on 
every possible occasion. Suetonius, another Roman general, 
came and stormed the Island of Anglesey (then called Mona), 
which was supposed to be sacred; and he burnt the Druids in 
their own wicker cages, by their own fires. But even while 
he was in Britain with his victorious troops, the Britons rose. 
Because Boadicea, a British queen, the widow of the king of 
the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the plundering of her 
property by the Romans who were settled in England, she 
Was scourged by order of Catus, a Roman officer; and her two 
daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence; and her 
husband’s relations were made slaves. To avenge this injury, 
the Britons rose with all their might and rage. They drove 
Catus into Gaul; they laid the Roman possessions waste; they 
forced the Romans out of London (then a poor little town, 
but a trading-place); they hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew 
by the sword seventy thousand Romans in a few days. Sueto¬ 
nius strengthened his army, and advanced to give them battle. 
They strengthened their army, and desperately attacked his on 
the field where it was strongly posted. Before the first charge 
of the Britons was made, Boadicea, in a war chariot, with her 
fair hair streaming in the wind, and her injured daughters 
lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and cried to them 
for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious Romans. 
The Britons fought to the last; but they were vanquished with 
great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison. 

Still the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When Sue¬ 
tonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook 
the Island of Anglesey. Agricola came fifteen or twenty years 
afterwards, and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to 
subduing the country, especially that part of it which is now 
called Scotland; but its people, the Caledonians, resisted him 
at every inch of ground. They fought the bloodiest battles 
with him; they killed their very wives and children, to pre¬ 
vent his making prisoners of them; they fell, fighting, in such 
great numbers that certain hills in Scotland are yet supposed to 
be vast heaps of stones piled up above their graves. Hadrian 
came thirty years afterwards; and still they resisted him. Sev- 
erus came nearly a hundred years afterwards; and they worried 
his great army like dogs, and rejoiced to see them die, by 


8 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


thousands, in the hogs and swamps. Caracalla, the son and 
successor of Severus, did the most to conquer them, for a time; 
hut not by force of arms. He knew how little that would do. 
He yielded up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave 
the Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There 
was peace after this for seventy years. 

Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, 
seafaring people from the countries to the north of the Rhine, 
the great river of Germany, on ohe banks of which the best 
grapes grow to make the German wine. They began to come 
in pirate ships to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, and to 
plunder them. They were repulsed by Carausius, a native 
either of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by the 
Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons first 
began to fight upon the sea. But after this time they renewed 
their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was 
then the name for the people of Ireland) and the Piets, a 
northern people, began to make frequent plundering incursions 
into the South of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, 
at intervals, during two hundred years, and through a long 
succession of Roman emperors and chiefs; during all which 
length of time the Britons rose against the Romans, over and 
over again. At last, in the days of the Roman Honorius, 
when the Roman power all over the world was fast declining, 
and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the Romans 
abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away. 
And still, at last as at first, the Britons rose against them in 
their old brave manner; for a very little while before, they 
had turned away the Roman magistrates, and declared them¬ 
selves an independent people. 

Five hundred years had passed since Julius Caesar’s first 
invasion of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for 
ever. In the course of that time, although they had been the 
cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done much 
to improve the condition of the Britons. They had made 
great military roads; they had built forts; they had taught 
them how to dress and arm themselves much better than they 
had ever known how to do before; they had refined the whole 
British way of living. Agricola had built a great wall of 
earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle 
to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Piets 


9 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and Scots; Hadrian had strengthened it; Severus, finding it 
much in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone. Above 
all, it was in the Boman time, and by means of Boman ships, 
that the Christian religion was first brought into Britain, and 
its people first taught the great lesson, that, to be good in the 
sight of God, they must love their neighbours as themselves, 
and do unto others as they would be done by. The Druids 
declared that it was very wicked to believe in any such thing, 
and cursed all the people who did believe it, very heartily. 
But when the people found that they were none the better for 
the blessings of the Druids, and none the worse for the curses 
of the Druids, but that the sun shone and the rain fell without 
consulting the Druids at all, they just began to think that the 
Druids were mere men, and that it signified very little whether 
they cursed or blessed. After which, the pupils of the Druids 
fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to other trades. 

Thus I have come to the end of the Boman time in Eng¬ 
land. It is but little that is known of those five hundred 
years; but some remains of them are still found. Often, when 
labourers are digging up the ground to make foundations for 
houses or churches, they light on rusty money that once 
belonged to the Bomans. Fragments of plates from which 
they ate, of goblets from which they drank, and of pavement 
on which they trod, are discovered among the earth that is 
broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the 
gardener’s spade. Wells that the Bomans sunk still yield 
water; roads that the Bomans made form part of our high¬ 
ways. In some old battle-fields, British spear-heads and 
Boman armour have been found, mingled together in decay, 
as they fell in the thick pressure of the fight. Traces of 
Boman camps, overgrown with grass, and of mounds that are 
the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are to be seen in almost 
all parts of the country. Across the bleak moors of Northum¬ 
berland, the wall of Severus, overrun with moss and weeds, 
still stretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their dogs 
lie sleeping on it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain, 
Stonehenge yet stands, — a monument of the earlier time when 
the Boman name was unknown in Britain, and when the 
Druids, with their best magic wands, could not have written it 
in the sands of the wild sea-shore. 


10 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER II 

ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS 

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain when the 
Britons began to wish they had never left it. Eor the Roman 
soldiers being gone, and the Britons being much reduced in 
numbers by their long wars, the Piets and Scots came pouring 
in over the broken and unguarded wall of Severus in swarms. 
They plundered the richest towns, and killed the people; and 
came back so' often for more booty and more slaughter that the 
unfortunate Britons lived a life of terror. As if the Piets and 
Scots were not bad enough on land, the Saxons attacked the 
islanders by sea; and as if something more were still wanting 
to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among them¬ 
selves as to what prayers they ought to say, and how they 
ought to say them. The priests, being very angry with one 
another on these questions, cursed one another in the heartiest 
manner; and (uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the 
people whom they could not persuade. So altogether the 
Britons were very badly off, you may believe. 

They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter 
to Rome, entreating help (which they called the groans of the 
Britons), and in which they said, “The barbarians chase us 
into the sea; the sea throws us back upon the barbarians; and 
we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword, 
or perishing by the waves .’ 5 But the Romans could not help 
them, even if they were so inclined; for they had enough to 
do to defend themselves against their own enemies, who were 
then very fierce and strong. At last the Britons, unable to 
bear their hard condition any longer, resolved to make peace 
with the Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to come into their 
country, and help them to keep out the Piets and Scots. 

It was a British prince named Vortigern who took this reso¬ 
lution, and who made a treaty of friendship with Hengist and 
Horsa, two Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


11 



Saxon language, signify horse; for the Saxons, like many other 
nations in a rough state, were fond of giving men the names 
of animals, as horse, wolf, hear, hound. The Indians of 
Korth America— a very inferior people to the Saxons, though 
do the same to this day. 

Hengist and Horsa drove out the Piets and Scots; and Vor- 
tigern, being grateful to them for that service, made no oppo¬ 
sition to their settling themselves in that part of England 
which is called the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over 
more of their countrymen to join them. But Hengist had a 
beautiful daughter named Rowena; and when, at a feast, she 
filled a golden goblet to the brim with wine, and gave it to 
Vortigern, saying, in a sweet voice, “ Dear king, thy health! ” 
the king fell in love with her. My opinion is that the cun¬ 
ning Hengist meant him to do so, in order that the Saxons 
might have greater influence with him; and that the fair 
Rowena came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose. 

At any rate, they were married; and long afterwards, when¬ 
ever the king was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their 
encroachments, Rowena would put her beautiful arms round 
his neck, and softly say, “Dear king, they are my people! 
Be favourable to them, as you loved that Saxon girl who gave 
you the golden goblet of wine at the feast.” And really I 
don’t see how the king could help himself. 

Ah! We must all die! In the course of years, Vortigern 
died (he was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid); 
and Rowena died; and generations of Saxons and Britons died; 
and events that happened during a long, long time would have 
been quite forgotten but for the tales and songs of the old 
bards, who used to go about from feast to feast, with their 
white beards, recounting the deeds of their forefathers. Among 
the histories of which they sang and talked, there was a famous 
one concerning the bravery and virtues of King Arthur, sup¬ 
posed to have been a British prince in those old times. But 
whether such a person really lived, or whether there were sev¬ 
eral persons whose histories came to he confused together under 
that one name, or whether all about him was invention, no one 
knows. 

I will tell you shortly what is most interesting in the early 
Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories 
of the bards. 


12 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


In, and long after, the days of Yortigern, fresh bodies of 
Saxons, under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. One 
body, conquering the Britons in the East, and settling there, 
called their kingdom Essex; another body settled in the West, 
and called their kingdom Wessex; the Northfolk, or Norfolk 
people, established themselves in one place; the Southfolk, or 
Suffolk people, established themselves in another; and grad¬ 
ually seven kingdoms, or states, arose in England, which were 
called the Saxon Heptarchy. The poor Britons, falling back 
before these crowds of fighting men whom they had innocently 
invited over as friends, retired into Wales and the adjacent 
country, into Devonshire, and into Cornwall. Those parts of 
England long remained unconquered. And in Cornwall now, 
— where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and rugged; 
where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often been wrecked 
close to the land, and every soul on board has perished; where 
the winds and waves howl drearily, and split the solid rocks 
into arches and caverns, — there are very ancient ruins, which 
the people call the ruins of King Arthur’s Castle. 

Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, 
because the Christian religion was preached to the Saxons there 
(who domineered over the Britons too much to care for what 
they said about their religion, or anything else) by Augus¬ 
tine, a monk from Borne. King Ethelbert of Kent was soon 
converted; and the moment he said he was a Christian, his 
courtiers all said they were Christians; after which ten thou¬ 
sand of his subjects said they were Christians too. Augustine 
built a little church close to this king’s palace, on the ground 
now occupied by the beautiful cathedral of Canterbury. Sebert, 
the king’s nephew, built on a muddy, marshy place near Lon¬ 
don, where there had been a temple to Apollo, a church dedi¬ 
cated to St. Peter; which is now Westminster Abbey. And 
in London itself, on the foundation of a temple to Diana, he 
built another little church, which has risen up since that old 
time to be St. Paul’s. 

After the death of Ethelbert, Edwin, king of Northum- 
biia, who was such a good king that it was said a woman or 
child might openly carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without 
fear, allowed his child to be baptised, and held a great council 
to consider whether he and his people should all be Christians 
or not. It was decided that they should be. Coifi, the chief 




THE WALL OF SEVERUS 














A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


13 


priest of the old religion, made a great speech on the occasion. 
In this discourse, he told the people that he had found out the 
old gods to be impostors. “I am quite satisfied of it,” he 
said. “Look at me! I have been serving them all my life, 
and they have done nothing for me; whereas, if they had been 
really powerful, they could not have decently done less, in 
return for all I have done for them, than make my fortune. 
As they have never made my fortune, I am quite convinced 
they are impostors.” When this singular priest had finished 
speaking, he hastily armed himself with sword and lance, 
mounted a war-horse, rode at a furious gallop, in sight of all 
the people, to the temple, and flung his lance against it, as an 
insult. From that time, the Christian religion spread itself 
among the Saxons, and became their faith. 

The next very famous prince was Egbert. He lived about 
a hundred and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a 
better right to the throne of Wessex than Beortric, another 
Saxon prince who was at the head of that kingdom, and who 
married Edburga, the daughter of Offa, king of another of 
the seven kingdoms. This Queen Edburga was a handsome 
murderess, who poisoned people when they offended her. 
One day she mixed a cup of poison for a certain noble belong¬ 
ing to the court; hut her husband drank of it, too, by mistake, 
and died. Upon this the people revolted in great crowds; 
and running to the palace, and thundering at the gates, cried, 
“ Down with the wicked queen who poisons men! ” They 
drove her out of the country, and abolished the title she had 
disgraced. When years had passed away, some travellers came 
home from Italy, and said that in the town of Pavia they had 
seen a ragged beggar-woman, — who had once been handsome, 
hut was then shrivelled, bent, and yellow, — wandering about 
the streets, crying for bread; and that this beggar-woman was 
the poisoning English queen. It was, indeed, Edburga; and 
so she died, without a shelter for her wretched head. 

Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, in conse¬ 
quence of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he 
thought his rival might take him prisoner and put him to 
death), sought refuge at the court of Charlemagne, king of 
France. On the death of Beortric, so unhappily poisoned 
by mistake, Egbert came back to Britain; succeeded to the 
throne of Wessex; conquered some of the other monarchs of 


14 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the seven kingdoms; added their territories to his own; and 
for the first time, called the country over which he ruled, 
England. 

And now new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled 
England sorely. These were the Northmen, — the people of 
Denmark and Norway; whom the English called the Danes. 
They were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea; not 
Christians; very daring and cruel. They came over in ships, 
and plundered and burned wheresoever they landed. Once 
they beat Egbert in battle. Once Egbert beat them. But 
they cared no more for being beaten than the English them¬ 
selves. In the four following short reigns, — of Ethelwulf, 
and his sons, Ethelbald, Etlielbert, and Ethelred, — they 
came back, over and over again, burning and plundering, and 
laying England waste. In the last-mentioned reign, they 
seized Edmund, king of East England, and bound him to a 
tree. Then they proposed to him that he should change his 
religion; but he, being a good Christian, steadily refused. 
Dpon that, they beat him; made cowardly jests upon him, all 
defenceless as he was; shot arrows at him; and finally struck 
off his head. It is impossible to say whose head they might 
have struck off next, but for the death of King Ethelred from 
a wound he had received in fighting against them, and the 
succession to his throne of the best and wisest king that ever 
Jived in England. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


15 


CHAPTER III 

ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED 

Alfred the Great was a young man three-and-twenty 
years of age when he became king. Twice in his childhood he 
had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the 
habit of going on journeys which they supposed to be reli¬ 
gious; and once he had stayed for some time in Paris. Learn¬ 
ing, however, was so little cared for then that at twelve years 
old he had not been taught to read; although, of the sons 
of King Ethelwulf, he, the youngest, was the favourite. But 
he had — as most men who grow up to be great and good are 
generally found to have had — an excellent mother; and one 
day this lady, whose name was Osburga, happened, as she was 
sitting among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The 
art of printing was not known until long and long after that 
period; and the book, which was written, was what is called 
“ illuminated ” with beautiful bright letters, richly painted. 
The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, “I will 
give it to that one of you four princes who first learns to 
read.” Alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied him¬ 
self to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. He 
was proud of it all his life. 

This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine 
battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them 
too, by which the false Danes swore they would quit the coun¬ 
try. They pretended to consider that they had taken a very 
solemn oath, in swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they 
wore, and which were always buried with them when they 
died. But they cared little for it; for they thought nothing 
of breaking oaths, and treaties too, as soon as it suited their 
purpose, and coming back again to fight, plunder, and burn, 
as usual. One fatal winter, in the fourth year of King Alfred's 
reign, they spread themselves in great numbers over the whole 
of England; and so dispersed and routed the king’s soldiers 


16 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


that the king was left alone, and was obliged to disguise himself 
as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the cottage of one 
of his cowherds, who did not know his face. 

Here King Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and 
near, was left alone one day by the cowherd’s wife, to watch 
some cakes which she put to hake upon the hearth. But 
being at work upon his bow and arrows, with which he hoped 
to punish the false Danes when a brighter time should come, 
and thinking deeply of his poor, unhappy subjects, whom the 
Danes chased through the land, his noble mind forgot the 
cakes; and they were burnt. “What!” said the cowherd’s 
wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little 
thought she was scolding the king. “ You will be ready enough 
to eat them by and by; and yet you cannot watch them, idle 
dog! ” 

At length the Devonshire men made head against a new 
host of Danes who landed on their coast; killed their chief, 
and captured their flag (on which was represented the likeness 
of a raven, —a very fit bird for a thievish army like that, I 
think). The loss of their standard troubled the Danes greatly; 
for they believed it to be enchanted, — woven by the three 
daughters of one father in a single afternoon. And they had 
a story among themselves that, when they were victorious in 
battle, the raven stretched his wings, and seemed to fly; and 
that when they were defeated he would droop. He had good 
reason to droop now, if he could have done anything half so 
sensible; for King Alfred joined the Devonshire men; made 
a camp with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a 
bog in Somersetshire; and prepared for a great attempt for 
vengeance on the Danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed 
people. 

But first, as it was important to know how numerous those 
pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, King 
Alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man 
or minstrel, and went with his harp to the Danish camp. He 
played and sang in the very tent of Guthrum, the Danish 
leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he 
seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of 
their tents, their arms, their discipline, — everything that he 
desired to know. And right soon did this great king entertain 
them to a different tune; for, summoning all his true followers 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


17 


to meet him at an appointed place, where they received him 
with joyful shouts and tears as the monarch whom many of 
them had given up for lost or dead, he put himself at their 
head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated the Danes with 
great slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen days to prevent 
their escape. But, being as merciful as he was good and 
brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace, — on 
condition that they should altogether depart from that western 
part of England, and settle in the east; and that Gutlirum 
should become a Christian, in remembrance of the divine 
religion which now taught his conqueror, the noble Alfred, to 
forgive the enemy who had so often injured him. This 
Guthrum did. At his baptism, King Alfred was his god¬ 
father. And Guthrum was an honourable chief, who well 
deserved that clemency; for ever afterwards he was loyal and 
faithful to the king. The Danes under him were faithful too. 
They plundered and burned no more, hut worked like honest 
men. They ploughed and sowed and reaped, and led good, 
honest English lives. And I hope the children of those Danes 
played many a time with Saxon children in the sunny fields; 
and that Danish young men fell in love with Saxon girls, and 
married them, and that English travellers, benighted at the 
doors of Danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morn¬ 
ing; and that Danes and Saxons sat by the red fire, friends, 
talking of King Alfred the Great. 

All the Danes were not like these under Guthrum; for, 
after some years, more of them came over in the old plunder¬ 
ing and burning way, — among them a fierce pirate of the 
name of Hastings, who had the boldness to sail up the Thames 
to Gravesend with eighty ships. For three years there was a 
war with these Danes; and there was a famine in the country, 
too, and a plague, both upon human creatures and beasts. 
But King Alfred, whose mighty heart never failed him, built 
large ships nevertheless, with which to pursue the pirates on 
the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers by his brave example 
to fight valiantly against them on the shore. At last he drove 
them all away ; and then there was repose in England. 

As great and good in peace as he was great and good in war, 
King Alfred never rested from his labours to improve his 
people. He loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers 
from foreign countries, and to write down what they told him, 


18 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OR ENGLAND 


for his people to read. He had studied Latin after learning 
to read English; and now another of his labours was to trans¬ 
late Latin hooks into the English-Saxon tongue, that his 
people might he interested and improved by their contents. 
He made just laws, that they might live more happily and 
freely; he turned away all partial judges, that no wrong might 
be done them; he was so careful of their property, and pun¬ 
ished robbers so severely, that it was a common thing to say 
that, under the great Xing Alfred, garlands of golden chains 
and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man 
would have touched one. He founded schools; he patiently 
heard causes himself in his court of justice. The great desires 
of his heart were to do right to all his subjects, and to leave 
England better, wiser, happier in all ways, than he found it. 
His industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. Every 
day he divided into certain portions, and in each portion 
devoted himself to a certain pursuit. That he might divide 
his time exactly, he had wax torches or candles made, which 
were all of the same size, were notched across at regular dis¬ 
tances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as the candles 
burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as accu¬ 
rately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But 
when the candles were first invented, it was found that the 
wind and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the 
doors and windows, and through the chinks in the walls, 
caused them to gutter, and burn unequally. To prevent this, 
the king had them put into cases formed of wood and white 
horn. And these were the first lanterns ever made in England. 

All this time he was afflicted with a terrible, unknown 
disease; which caused him violent and frequent pain that 
nothing could relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the 
troubles of his life, like a brave, good man, until he was fifty- 
three years old; and then, having reigned thirty years, he 
died. He died in the year 901; but long ago as that is, his 
fame, and the love and gratitude with which his subjects 
regarded him, are freshly remembered to the present hour. 

In the next reign, which was the reign of Edward, sur- 
named The Elder, who was chosen in council to succeed, a 
nephew of King Alfred troubled the country by trying to 
obtain the throne. The Danes in the east of England took 
part with this usurper (perhaps because they had honoured his 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


19 


uncle so much, and honoured him for his uncle’s sake), and 
there was hard fighting; but the king, with the assistance of 
his sister, gained the day, and reigned in peace for four-and- 
twenty years. He gradually extended his power over the 
whole of England; and so the seven kingdoms were united 
into one. 

When England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one 
Saxon king, the Saxons had been settled in the country more 
than four hundred and fifty years. Great changes had taken 
place in its customs during that time. The Saxons were still 
greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feasts were often 
of a noisy and drunken kind; but many new comforts, and 
even elegances, had become known, and were fast increasing. 
Hangings for the walls of rooms (where, in these modern days, 
we paste up paper) are known to have been sometimes made 
of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in needle-work. 
Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods; 
were sometimes decorated with gold or silver; sometimes even 
made of those precious metals. Knives and spoons were used 
at table; golden ornaments were worn, —with silk and cloth, 
and golden tissues and embroideries; dishes were made of gold 
and silver, brass and hone. There were varieties of drinking- 
horns, bedsteads, musical instruments. A harp was passed 
round at a feast, like the drinking-howl, from guest to guest; 
and each one usually sang or played when his turn came. 
The weapons of the Saxons were stoutly made; and among 
them was a terrible iron hammer, that gave deadly blows, and 
was long remembered. The Saxons themselves were a hand¬ 
some people. The men were proud of their long fair hair, 
parted on the forehead; their ample beards; their fresh com¬ 
plexions and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women 
filled all England with a new delight and grace. 

I have more to tell of the Saxons yet; hut I stop to say this 
now, because, under the great Alfred, all the best points of 
the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him 
first shown. It has been the greatest character among the 
nations of the earth. Wherever the descendants of the Saxon 
race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise made their way, even 
to the remotest regions of the world, they have been patient, 
persevering, never to he broken in spirit, never to he turned 
aside from enterprises on which they have resolved. In 


20 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world over; in the 
desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a burning sun, or 
frozen by ice that never melts, ■— the Saxon blood remains 
unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there law and indus¬ 
try, and safety for life and property, and all the great results 
of steady perseverance are certain to arise. 

I pause to think with admiration of the noble king, who, in 
his single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom 
misfortune could not subdue; whom prosperity could not spoil; 
whose perseverance nothing could shake. Who was hopeful 
in defeat, and generous in success. Who loved justice, free¬ 
dom, truth, and knowledge. Who, in his care to instruct his 
people, probably did more to preserve the beautiful old Saxon 
language than I can imagine. Without whom the English 
tongue in which I tell this story might have wanted half its 
meaning. As it is said that his spirit still inspires some of 
our best English laws, so let you and I pray that it may 
animate our English hearts, at least to this, —to resolve, when 
we see any of our fellow-creatures left in ignorance, that we 
will do our best, while life is in us, to have them taught; and 
to tell those rulers whose duty it is to teach them, and who 
neglect their duty, that they have profited very little by all the 
years that have rolled away since the year 901, and that they 
are far behind the bright example of King Alfred the Great. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


21 


CHAPTER IV 

ENGLAND UNDER ATI1ELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 

Athelstan, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded that 
king. He reigned only fifteen years; but he remembered the 
glory of his grandfather, the great Alfred, and governed Eng¬ 
land well. He reduced the turbulent people of Wales, and 
obliged them to pay him a tribute in money and in cattle, and 
to send him their best hawks and hounds. He was victorious 
over the Cornish men, who were not yet quiet under the Saxon 
government. He restored such of the old laws as were good, 
and had fallen into disuse; made some wise new laws, and 
took care of the poor and weak. A strong alliance, made 
against him by Anlaf, a Danish prince, Constantine, king of 
the Scots, and the people of North Wales, he broke and 
defeated in one great battle, long famous for the vast numbers 
slain in it. After that he had a quiet reign; the lords and 
ladies about him had leisure to become polite and agreeable; 
and foreign princes were glad (as they have sometimes been 
since) to come to England on visits to the English court. 

When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother 
Edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. He was the 
first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. 

They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste 
for improvement and refinement. But he was beset by the 
Danes, and had a short and troubled reign; which came to 
a troubled end. One night, when he was feasting in his hall, 
and had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw among the com¬ 
pany a noted robber named Leof, who had been banished from 
England. Made very angry by the boldness of this man, the 
king turned to his cup-bearer, and said, “There is a robber 
sitting at the table yonder, who, for his crimes, is an outlaw 
in the land, — a hunted wolf, whose life any man may take, 
at any time. Command that robber to depart! ” — “I will not 
depart!” said Leof. “No?” cried the king. “No, by the 


22 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Lord!” said Leof. Upon that the king rose from his seat, 
and making passionately at the robber, and seizing him by his 
long hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber had a 
dagger underneath his cloak, and in the scuffle stabbed the 
king to death. That done, he set his back against the wall, 
and fought so desperately that, although he was soon cut to 
pieces by the king’s armed men, and the wall and pavement 
were splashed with his blood, yet it was not before he had 
killed and wounded many of them. You may imagine what 
rough lives the kings of those times led, when one of them 
could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own 
dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who 
ate and drank with him. 

Then succeeded the boy-king Edred, who was weak and 
sickly in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought 
the Northmen,—the Danes and Norwegians, or the Sea- 
Kings, as they were called, — and beat them for the time. 
And in nine years Edred died, and passed away. 

Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age; but the 
real king, who had the real power, was a monk named Dun- 
stan — a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud and 
cruel. 

Dunstan was then abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither the 
body of King Edmund the Magnificent was carried to be 
buried. While yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night 
(being then in a fever), and walked about Glastonbury Church 
when it was under repair; and because he did not tumble off 
some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it was 
reported that he had been shown over the building by an 
angel. He had also made a harp that was said to play of 
itself, which it very likely did, as iEolian harps, which are 
played by the wind, and are understood now, always do. For 
these wonders he had been once denounced by his enemies, 
who were jealous of his fayour with the late King Athelstan, 
as a magician; and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, 
and thrown into a marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to 
cause a great deal of trouble yet. 

The priests of those days were generally the only scholars. 
They were learned in many things. Having to make their 
own convents and monasteries on uncultivated grounds that 
were granted to them by the crown, it was necessary that they 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


23 


should be good farmers and good gardeners, or their lands 
would have been too poor to support them. For the decora¬ 
tion of the chapels where they prayed, and for the comfort of 
the refectories where they ate and drank, it was necessary that 
there should be good carpenters, good smiths, good painters, 
among them. For their greater safety in sickness and acci¬ 
dent, living alone by themselves in solitary places, it was 
necessary that they should study the virtues of plants and 
herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and 
bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accordingly, they 
taught themselves and one another a great variety of useful 
arts, and became skilful in agriculture, medicine, surgery, and 
handicraft. And when they wanted the aid of any little piece 
of machinery, which would be simple enough now, but was 
marvellous then, to impose a trick upon the poor peasants, 
they knew very well how to make it; and did make it many 
a time and often, I have no doubt. 

Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most 
sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, and 
worked at a forge in a little cell. This cell was made too 
short to admit of his lying at full length when he went to 
sleep (as if that did any good to anybody!); and he used to 
tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, who, 
he said, came there to persecute him. For instance, he 
related, that, one day when he was at work, the Devil looked 
in at the little window, and tried to tempt him to lead a life 
of idle pleasure; whereupon, having his pincers in the fire, 
red-hot, he seized the Devil by the nose, and put him to such 
pain that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. 
Some people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of 
Dunstan’s madness (for his head never quite recovered the 
fever); but I think not. I observe that it induced the igno¬ 
rant people to consider him a holy man, and that it made him 
very powerful; which was exactly what he always wanted. 

On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king 
Edwy, it was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury 
(who was a Dane by birth), that the king quietly left the 
coronation feast, while all the company were there. Odo, 
much displeased, sent his friend Dunstan to seek him. Dun¬ 
stan finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife 
Elgiva, and her mother Ethelgiva, a good and virtuous lady, 


* 


24 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young king 
back into the feasting hall by force. Some, again, think 
Dunstan did this because the young king’s fair wife was his 
own cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their 
own cousins; hut I believe he did it because he was an impe¬ 
rious, audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a 
young lady himself before he became a sour monk, hated all 
love now, and everything belonging to it. 

The young king was quite old enough to feel this insult. 
Dunstan had been treasurer in the last reign; and he soon 
charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last king’s 
money. The Glastonbury abbot fled to Belgium (very nar¬ 
rowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his 
eyes, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows), 
and his abbey was given to priests who were married; whom 
he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But he 
quickly conspired with his friend Odo, the Dane, to set up the 
king’s young brother Edgar, as his rival for the throne; and, 
not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen 
Elgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to 
be stolen from one of the royal palaces, branded in the cheek 
with a red-hot iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. But 
the Irish people pitied and befriended her; and they said, 
“Let us restore the girl-queen to the boy-king, and make the 
young lovers happy! ” And they cured her of her cruel 
wound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. But the 
villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, caused her to be 
waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her 
husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to be 
barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy 
the Fair (his people called him so because he was so young and 
handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken 
heart; and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and 
husband ends. Ah! Better to be two cottagers, in these 
better times, than king and queen of England in those bad 
days, though never so fair! 

Then came the boy-king Edgar, called the Peaceful, fifteen 
years old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all mar¬ 
ried priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced 
them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called 
the Benedictines. He made himself Arch 1 i.sliop of Canter- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


25 


bury, for his greater glory; and exercised such power over the 
neighbouring British princes, and so collected them about the 
king, that once, when the king held his court at Chester, and 
went on the river Dee to visit the monastery of Saint John, the 
eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people used to delight 
in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned kings, and 
steered by the king of England. As Edgar was very obedient 
to Dunstan and the monks, they took great pains to represent 
him as the best of kings; but he was really profligate, 
debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried off a young 
lady from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to 
be very much shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown 
upon his head for seven years, —no great punishment, I dare 
say, as it can hardly have been a more comfortable ornament 
to wear than a stewpan without a handle. His marriage with 
his second wife, Elfrida, is one of the worst events of his 
reign. Hearing of the beauty of this lady, he despatched his 
favourite courtier, A f helwold, to her father’s castle in Devon¬ 
shire, to see if she were really as charming as fame reported. 
Now, she was so exceedingly beautiful that Athelwold fell in 
love with her himself, and married her; but he told the king 
that she was only rich, not handsome. The king, suspecting 
the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the newly 
married couple a visit; and suddenly told Athelwold to prepare 
for his immediate coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed to 
his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her 
to disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that 
he might be safe from the king’s anger. She promised that 
she would; but she was a proud woman, who would far rather 
have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. She dressed 
herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest 
jewels; and when the king came presently, he discovered the 
cheat. So he caused his false friend Athelwold to be murdered 
in a wood, and married his widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or 
seven years afterwards he died, and was buried (as if he had 
been all that the monks said he was) in the abbey of Glaston¬ 
bury, which he — or Dunstan for him — had much enriched. 

England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by 
wolves, which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves 
in the mountains of Wales when they were not attacking trav¬ 
ellers and aniniDs, that the tribute payable by the Welsh 


26 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing 
every year three hundred wolves’ heads. And the Welshmen 
were so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, that in 
four years there was not a wolf left. 

Then came the boy-king Edward, called the Martyr, from 
the manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethelred, 
for whom she claimed the throne; but Dunstan did not choose 
to favour him, and he made Edward king. The boy was 
hunting one day down in Dorsetshire, when he rode near to 
Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to 
see them kindly, he rode away from his attendants, and gal¬ 
loped to the castle gate; where he arrived at twilight, and 
blew his hunting horn. “You are welcome, dear king,” said 
Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. “Pray you 
dismount and enter.” “Not so, dear madam,” said the king. 
“My company will miss me, and fear that I have met with 
some harm. Please you to give me a cup of wine, that I may 
drink here in the saddle to you and to my little brother, and 
so ride away with the good speed I have made in riding here.” 
Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered to an armed 
servant, one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkening 
gateway, and crept round behind the king’s horse. As the 
king raised the cup to his lips, saying, “Health!” to the 
wicked woman who was smiling on him, and to his innocent 
brother whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten 
years old, this armed man made a spring, and stabbed him in 
the back. He dropped the cup, and spurred his horse away; 
but, soon fainting with loss of blood, drooped from the saddle, 
and in his fall entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. The 
frightened horse dashed on, trailing his rider’s curls upon the 
ground, dragging his smooth young face through ruts and 
stones and briers and fallen leaves and mud, until the hunters, 
trac’/ing the animal’s course by the king’s blood, caught his 
bridle, and released the disfigured body. 

Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, Ethelred, 
whom Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered 
brother riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat 
with a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. 
The people so disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother 
and the murder she had done to promote him, that Dunstan 
would not have had him for king; but would have made 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


27 


Edgitha, the daughter of the dead king Edgar, and of the lady 
whom he stole out of the convent at Wilton, queen of Eng¬ 
land, if she would have consented. But she knew the stories 
of the youthful kings too well, and would not he persuaded 
from the convent where she lived in peace; so Dunstan put 
Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put there, and 
gave him the nickname of the Unready, — knowing that he 
wanted resolution and firmness. 

At first Elfrida possessed great influence over the young 
king; but as he grew older, and came of age, her influence 
declined. The infamous woman, not having it in her power 
to do any more evil, then retired from court, and, according 
to the fashion of the time, built churches and monasteries to 
expiate her guilt. As if a church with a steeple reaching to 
the very stars would have been any sign of true repentance for 
the blood of the poor boy whose murdered form was trailed at 
his horse’s heels! As if she could have buried her wickedness 
beneath the senseless stones of the whole world, piled up one 
upon another for the monks to live in! 

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. 
He was growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. 
Two circumstances that happened in connection with him, in 
this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise. Once he was 
present at a meeting of the Church, when the question was 
discussed, whether priests should have permission to marry; 
and as he sat with his head hung down, apparently thinking 
about it, a voice seemed to come out of a crucifix in the room, 
and warn the meeting to be of his opinion. This was some 
juggling of Dunstan’s, and was probably his own voice dis¬ 
guised. But he played off a worse juggle than that soon after¬ 
wards; for another meeting being held on the same subject, 
and he and his supporters being seated on one side of a great 
room, and their opponents on the other, he rose and said, “To 
Christ himself, as Judge, do I commit this cause! ” Immedi¬ 
ately on these words being spoken, the floor where the opposite 
party sat gave way; and some were killed, and many wounded. 
You may be pretty sure that it had been weakened under 
Dunstan’s direction, and that it fell at Dunstan’s signal. His 
part of the floor did not go down. No, no! He was too good 
a workman for that. 

When he died, the monks settled that he was a saint, and 


28 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

called him St. Dunstan ever afterwards. They might just as 
well have settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just 
as easily have called him one. 

Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to he 
rid of this holy saint; hut, left to himself, he wms a poor, 
weak king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. 
The restless Danes, led by Sweyn, a son of the king of Den¬ 
mark, who had quarrelled with his father, and had been ban¬ 
ished from home, again came into England, and year after year 
attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax these sea-kings 
away, the weak Ethelred paid them money; but the more 
money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. At first 
he gave them ten thousand pounds; on their next invasion, 
sixteen thousand pounds; on their next invasion, four-and- 
twenty thousand pounds; to pay which large sums, the unfor¬ 
tunate English people were heavily taxed. But as the Danes 
still came back, and wanted more, he thought it would be a 
good plan to marry into some powerful foreign family that 
would help him with soldiers. So in the year 1002, he 
courted and married Emma, the sister of Richard, Duke of 
Normandy, —a lady who was called the Flower of Normandy. 

And now a terrible deed was done in England, the like of 
which was never done on English ground before or since. On the 
thirteenth of November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent 
by the king over the whole country, the inhabitants of every 
town and city armed, and murdered all the Danes who were 
their neighbours. Young and old, babies and soldiers, men 
and women,—every Dane was killed. No doubt there were 
among them many ferocious men, who had done the English 
great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swaggering in the 
houses of the English, and insulting their wives and daughters, 
had become unbearable; but, no doubt, there were also among 
them many peaceful Christian Danes, who had married English 
women, and become like English men. They were all slain, 
even to Gunhilda, the sister of the king of Denmark, married 
to an English lord; who was first obliged to see the murder of 
her husband and her child, and then was killed herself. 

When the king of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, 
he swore that he would have a great revenge. He raised an 
army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to 
England. And in all his army there was not a slave nor an 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


20 


old man; but every soldier was a free man, and the son of a 
free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn to be revenged 
upon the English nation, for the massacre of that dread thir¬ 
teenth of November, when his countrymen and countrywomen, 
and the little children whom they loved, were killed with fire 
and sword. And so the sea-kings came to England in many 
great ships, each bearing the flag of its own commander. 
Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey, 
threatened England from the prows of those ships, as they 
came onward through the water, and were reflected in the 
shining shields that hung upon their sides. The ship that 
bore the standard of the king of the sea-kings was carved and 
painted like a mighty serpent; and the king, in his anger, 
prayed that the gods in whom he trusted might all desert him, 
if his serpent did not strike its fangs into England’s heart. 

And indeed it did. For the great army, landing from the 
great fleet near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, 
and striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or 
throwing them into rivers, in token of their making all the 
island theirs. In remembrance of the black November night 
when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever the invaders 
came they made the Saxons prepare and spread for them great 
feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts, and had drunk 
a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew their 
swords, and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched on. 
Eor six long years they carried on this war; burning the crops, 
farm-houses, barns, mills, granaries; killing the labourers in 
the fields; preventing the seed from being sown in the ground; 
causing famine and starvation ; leaving only heaps of ruin and 
smoking ashes, where they had found rich towns. To crown 
this misery, English officers and men deserted ; and even the 
favourites of Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized 
many of the English ships, turned pirates against their own 
country, and, aided by a storm, occasioned the loss of nearly 
the whole English navy. 

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who 
was true to his country and the feeble king. He was a priest, 
and a brave one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of Canter¬ 
bury defended that city against its Danish besiegers; and when 
a traitor in the town threw the gates open, and admitted them, 
he said, in chains, “ I will not buy. my life with money that 


30 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


must be extorted from the suffering people. Do with me what 
you please! ” Again and again, he steadily refused to pur¬ 
chase his release with gold wrung from the poor. 

At last the Danes, being tired of this, and being assembled 
at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting 
hall. 

“Now, bishop,” they said, “we want gold.” 

He looked round on the crowd of angry faces; from the 
shaggy beards close to him to the shaggy beards against the 
walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see him 
over the heads of others; and he knew that his time was come. 

“I have no gold,” said he. 

“ Get it, bishop! ” they all thundered. 

“That I have often told you I will not,” said he. 

They gathered closer round him, threatening; but he stood 
unmoved. Then one man struck him; then another; then a 
cursing soldier picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, 
where fragments had been rudely thrown at dinner, a great 
ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood came 
spurting forth; then others ran to the same heap, and knocked 
him down with other bones, and bruised and battered him; 
until one soldier whom he had baptised (willing, as I hope for 
the sake of that soldier’s soul, to shorten the sufferings of the 
good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. 

If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this 
noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. But he 
paid the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead; and 
gained so little by the cowardly act that Sweyn soon after¬ 
wards came over to subdue all England. So broken was the 
attachment of the English people by this time, to their incapa¬ 
ble king and their forlorn country, which could not protect 
them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides as a deliverer. 
London faithfully stood out as long as the king was within 
its walls; but when he sneaked away, it also welcomed the 
Dane. Then all was over; and the king took refuge abroad 
with the Duke of Normandy, who had already given shelter to 
the king’s wife (once the Flower of that country), and to her 
children. 

Still the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could 
not quite forget the great king Alfred and the Saxon race. 
When Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month after 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


31 


he had been proclaimed king of England, they generously sent 
to Ethelred, to say that they would have him for their king 
again, “if he would only govern them better than he had 
governed them before. ” The Unready, instead of coming 
himself, sent Edward, one of his sons, to make promises for 
him. At last he followed, and the English declared him king. 
The Danes declared Canute, the son of Sweyn, king. Thus 
direful war began again, and lasted for three years; when the 
Unready died. And I know of nothing better that he did in 
all his reign of eight-and-thirty years. 

Was Canute to be king now? Not over the Saxons, they 
said: they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the 
Unready, who was surnamed Ironside, because of his strength 
and stature. Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and 
fought five battles. 0 unhappy England! what a fighting- 
ground it was! And then Ironside, who was a big man, 
proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two 
should fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the 
big man, he would probably have said yes; but, being the 
little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that 
he was willing to divide the kingdom, — to take all that lay 
north of Watling Street, as the old Roman military road from 
Dover to Chester was called, and to give Ironside all that lay 
south of it. Most men being weary of so much bloodshed, 
this was done. But Canute soon became sole king of England; 
for Ironside died suddenly within two months. Some think 
that he was killed, and killed by Canute’s orders. No one 
knows. - - 


32 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER V 

ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE 

Canute reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless king 
at first. After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, 
in token of the sincerity with which he swore to be just and 
good to them in return for their acknowledging him, he 
denounced and slew many of them, as well as many relations 
of the late king. “He who brings me the head of one of my 
enemies,” he used to say, “shall be dearer to me than a 
brother.” And he was so severe in hunting down his enemies 
that he must have got together a pretty large family of these 
dear brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill Edmund and 
Edward, two children, sons of poor Ironside; but, being afraid 
to do so in England, he sent them over to the king of Sweden, 
with a request that the king would be so good as to “dispose 
of them.” If the king of Sweden had been like many, many 
other men of that day, he would have had their innocent 
throats cut; but he was a kind man, and brought them up 
tenderly. - 

Normandy ran much in Canute’s mind. In Normandy were 
the two children of the late king, —Edward and Alfred by 
name; and their uncle the duke might one day claim the 
crown for them. But the duke showed so little inclination to 
do so now that he proposed to Canute to marry his sister, the 
widow of the Unready; who, being but a showy flower, and 
caring for nothing so much as becoming a queen again, left her 
children, and was wedded to him. 

Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the 
English in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble 
him at home, Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many 
improvements. He was a poet and a musician. He grew 
sorry, as he grew older, for the blood he had shed at first; and 
went to Rome in a pilgrim’s dress, by way of washing it out. 
He gave a great deal of money to foreigners on his journey, 



REMNANT OB' ROMAN MILITARY ROAD BETWEEN DOVER AND CHESTER 























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


S3 


but be took it from the English before he started. On the 
whole, however, he certainly became a far better man when he 
had no opposition to contend with; and was as great a king as 
England had known for some time. 

The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one 
day disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery; and how he 
caused his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to com¬ 
mand the tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, 
for the land was his; how the tide came up, of course, without 
regarding him; and how he then turned to his flatterers, and 
rebuked them, saying, what was the might of any earthly king 
to the might of the Creator, who could say unto the sea, 
“Thus far slialt thou go, and no farther!” We may learn 
from this, I think, that a little sense will go a long way in a 
king; and that courtiers are not easily cured of flattery, nor 
kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers of Canute had not 
known, long before, that the king was fond of flattery, they 
would have known better than to offer it in such large doses. 
And if they had not known that he was vain of this speech, 
(anything but a wonderful speech, it seems to me, if a good 
child had made it!) they would not have been at such great 
pains to repeat it. I fancy I see them all on the sea-shore 
together; the king’s chair sinking in the sand; the king in a 
mighty good humour with his own wisdom; and the courtiers 
pretending to be quite stunned by it! 

It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go “thus far, and 
no farther.” The great command goes forth to all the kings 
upon the earth; and went to Canute in the year 1035, and 
stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it stood his Norman 
’wife. Perhaps, as the king looked his last upon her, he, who 
had so often thought distrustfully of Normandy long ago, 
thought once more of the two exiled princes in their uncle’s 
couH, and of the little favour they could feel for either Danes 
or Saxons; and of a rising cloud in Normandy that slowly 
moved towards England. 


34 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER VI 

ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND 

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 

Canute left three sons, by name Sweyn, Harold, and 
Hardicanute; but his queen, Emma, once the Elower of Nor¬ 
mandy, was the mother of only Hardicanute. Canute had 
wished his dominions to be divided between the three, and had 
wished Harold to have England; but the Saxon people in the 
south of England, headed by a nobleman with great posses¬ 
sions, called the powerful Earl Godwin (who is said to have 
been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to 
have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled 
princes who were over in Normandy. It seemed so certain 
that there would be more bloodshed, to settle this dispute, that 
many people left their homes, and took refuge in the woods 
and swamps. Happily, however, it was agreed to refer the 
whole question to a great meeting at Oxford, which decided 
that Harold should have all the country north of the Thames, 
with London for his capital city, and that Hardicanute should 
have all the south. The quarrel was so arranged; and as 
Hardicanute was in Denmark, troubling himself very little 
about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and 
Earl Godwin governed the south for him. 

They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people 
who had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when 
Edward, the elder of the two exiled princes, came over from 
Normandy with a few followers, to claim the English crown. 
His mother Emma, however, who only cared for her last son 
Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he expected, opposed 
him so strongly with all her influence that he was very soon 
glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred was not so fortu¬ 
nate. Believing in an affectionate letter, written some time 
afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother’s name (but 
whether really with or without his mother’s knowledge is now 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


35 


uncertain), he allowed himself to he tempted over to England, 
with a good force of soldiers; and landing on the Kentish 
coast, and being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded 
into Surrey, as far as the town of Guildford. Here he and 
his men halted in the evening to rest, having still the earl in 
their company; who had ordered lodgings and good cheer for 
them. But in the dead of the night, when they were off their 
guard, being divided into small parties, sleeping soundly, after 
a long march and a plentiful supper, in different houses, they 
were set upon by the king’s troops, and taken prisoners. 
Next morning they were drawn out in a line, to the number 
of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and killed; 
with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into 
slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped 
naked, tied to a horse, and sent away into the Isle of Ely, 
where his eyes were torn out of his head, and where in a few 
days he miserably died. I am not sure that the earl had wil¬ 
fully entrapped him, but I suspect it strongly. 

Harold was now king over all England; though it is doubt¬ 
ful whether the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of 
the priests were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever 
consented to crown him. Crowned or uncrowned, with the 
archbishop’s leave or without it, he was king for four years; 
after which short reign he died, and was buried, having never 
done much in life but go a hunting. He was such a fast 
runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people called him 
Harold Harefoot. 

Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Elanders, plotting with 
his mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder 
of Prince Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes 
and Saxons, finding themselves without a king, and dreading 
new disputes, made common cause, and joined in inviting him 
to occupy the throne. He consented, and soon troubled them 
enough; for he brought over numbers of Danes, and taxed the 
people so insupportably to enrich those greedy favourites that 
there were many insurrections, especially one at Worcester, 
where the citizens rose, and killed his tax-collectors; in 
revenge for which he burned their city. He was a brutal 
king, whose first public act was to order the dead body of poor 
Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the 
river. His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell 


36 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

down drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding 
feast at Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his stan¬ 
dard-bearer, a Dane named Towed the Proud. And he never 
spoke again. 

Edward, afterwards called by the monks the Confessor, suc¬ 
ceeded; and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, 
who had favoured him so little, to retire into the country, 

' where she died, some ten years afterwards. He was the exiled 
prince whose brother Alfred had been so foully killed. He 
had been invited over from Normandy by Hardicanute, in the 
course of his short reign of two years, and had been hand¬ 
somely treated at court. His cause was now favoured by the 
powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made king. This earl 
had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred’s 
cruel death: he had even been tried in the last reign for the 
prince’s murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, 
as it was supposed, because of a present he had made to the 
swinish king, of a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, 
and a crew of eighty splendidly armed men. It was his inter¬ 
est to help the new king with his power, if the new king 
would help him against the popular distrust and hatred. So 
they made a bargain. Edward the Confessor got the throne. 
The earl got more power and more land, and his daughter 
Editha was made queen; for it was a part of their compact 
that the king should take her for his wife. 

But although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to 
be beloved, — good, beautiful, sensible, and kind, — the king 
from the first neglected her. Her father and her six proud 
brothers, resenting this cold treatment, harassed the king 
greatly by exerting all their power to make him unpopular. 
Having lived so long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans 
to the English. He made a Norman archbishop, and Norman 
bishops; his great officers and favourites were all Normans; 
he introduced the Norman fashions and the Norman language; 
in imitation of the state custom of Normandy, he attached a 
great seal to his state documents, instead of merely marking 
them, as the Saxon kings had done, with the sign of the cross, 
— just as poor people who have never been taught to write 
now make the same mark for their names. All this the pow¬ 
erful Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the 
people as disfavour shown towards the English; and thus they 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 37 

daily increased their own power, and daily diminished the power 
of the king. 

They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when 
he had reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, who 
had married the king’s sister, came to England on a visit. 
After staying at the court some time, he set forth, with his 
numerous train of attendants, to return home. They were to 
embark at Dover. Entering that peaceful town in armour, 
they took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded 
to be lodged and entertained without payment. One of the 
bold men of Dover, who would not endure to have these 
domineering strangers jingling their heavy swords and iron 
corselets up and down his house, eating his meat and drinking 
his strong liquor, stood in his doorway, and refused admission 
to the first armed man who came there. The armed man drew 
and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man 
dead. Intelligence of what he had done spreading through 
the streets to where the Count Eustace and his men were 
standing by their horses, bridle in hand, they passionately 
mounted, galloped to the house, surrounded it, forced their 
way in (the doors and windows being closed when they came 
up), and killed the man of Dover at his own fireside. They 
then clattered through the streets, cutting down and riding 
over men, women, and children. This did not last long, you 
may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great 
fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, 
and blockading the road to the port, so that they should not 
embark, beat them out of the town by the way they had come. 
Hereupon Count Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to 
Gloucester, where Edward is, surrounded by Norman monks 
and Norman lords. “Justice,” cries the count, “upon the 
men of Dover, who have set upon and slain my people! ” 
The king sends immediately for the powerful Earl Godwin, 
who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is under 
his government; and orders him to repair to Dover, and do 
military execution on the inhabitants. “It does not become 
you,” says the proud earl in reply, “to condemn without a 
hearing those whom you have sworn to protect. I will not 
do it. ” 

The king, therefore, summoned the earl, on pain of banish¬ 
ment and loss of his titles and property, to appear before the 


38 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


court to answer this disobedience. The earl refused to appear. 
He, his eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily 
raised as many fighting men as their utmost power could col¬ 
lect, and demanded to have Count Eustace and his followers 
surrendered to the justice of the country. The king, in his 
turn, refused to give them up, and raised a strong force. 
After some treaty and delay, the troops of the great earl and 
his sons began to fall off. The earl, with a part of his family 
and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders; Harold escaped 
to Ireland; and the power of the great family was for that 
time gone in England. But the people did not forget them. 

Then Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a 
mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and 
sons upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending 
wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks 
excepted) loved. He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and 
her jewels; and, allowing her only one attendant, confined her 
in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his, no doubt an 
unpleasant lady after his own heart, was abbess, or jailer. 

Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his 
way, the king favoured the Normans more than ever. He 
invited over William, Duke of Normandy, the son of that 
duke who had received him and his murdered brother long 
ago, and of a peasant girl, a "tanner's daughter, with whom 
the duke had fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her wash¬ 
ing clothes in a brook. William, who was a great warrior, 
with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted the 
invitation; and the Normans in England, finding themselves 
more numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue, 
and held in still greater honour at court than before, became 
more and more haughty towards the people, and were more 
and more disliked by them. 

The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well 
how the people felt; for with part of the treasure he had 
carried away with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay all 
over England. Accordingly he thought the time was come 
for fitting out a great expedition against the Norman-loving 
king. With it he sailed to the Isle of Wight, where he was 
joined by his son Harold, the most gallant and brave of all his 
family. And so the father and son came sailing up the 
Thames to Southwark; great numbers of the people declaring 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 39 

for them, and shouting for the English earl and the English 
Harold, against the Norman favourites! 

The king was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually 
have been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. 
But the people rallied so thickly round the old earl and his 
son, and the old earl was so steady in demanding without 
bloodshed the restoration of himself and his family to their 
rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The Norman 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop of London, 
surrounded by their retainers, fought their way out of Lon¬ 
don, and escaped from Essex to France in a fishing-boat. The 
other Norman favourites dispersed in all directions. The old 
earl and his sons (except Sweyn), who had committed crimes 
against the law, were restored to their possessions and digni¬ 
ties. Editha, the virtuous and lovely queen of the insensible 
king, was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent, 
and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels 
of which, when she had no champion to support her rights, 
her cold-blooded husband had deprived her. 

The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored for¬ 
tune. He fell down in a fit at the king’s table, and died 
upon the third day afterwards. Harold succeeded to his 
power, and to a far higher place in the attachment of the 
people than his father had ever held. By his valour he sub¬ 
dued the king’s enemies in many bloody fights. He was 
vigorous against rebels in Scotland, — this was the time when 
Macbeth slew Duncan, upon which event our English Shake¬ 
speare, hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy, 
— and he killed the restless Welsh king Griffith, and brought 
his head to England. 

What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the 
French coast by a tempest, is not at all certain; nor does it 
at all matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that 
shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In 
those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken 
prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom. So a certain Count 
Guy, who was the Lord of Ponthieu, where Harold’s disaster 
happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable 
and Christian lord, as he ought to have done, and expected to 
make a very good thing of it. 

But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Nor- 


40 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


mandy, complaining of this treatment; and the duke no sooner 
heard of it than he ordered Harold to he escorted to the ancient 
town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he received 
him as an honoured guest. Now, some writers tell us that 
Edward the Confessor, who was by this time old and had no 
children, had made a will, appointing Duke William of Nor¬ 
mandy his successor, and had informed the duke of his having 
done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his 
successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, 
Edward the Outlaw, a son of Ironside, who had come to Eng¬ 
land with his wife and three children; but whom the king 
had strangely refused to see when he did come, and who had 
died in London suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sud¬ 
den death in those days), and had been buried in St. Paul’s 
Cathedral. The king might possibly have made such a will; 
or, having always been fond of the Normans, he might have 
encouraged Norman William to aspire to the English crown, by 
something that he said to him when he was staying at the 
English court. But certainly William did now aspire to it; 
and, knowing that Harold would he a powerful rival, he called 
together a great assembly of his nobles, offered Harold his 
daughter Adele in marriage, informed him that he meant on 
King Edward’s death to claim the English crown as his own 
inheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear to 
aid him. Harold, being in the duke’s power, took this oath 
upon the missal, or prayer-book. It is a good example of the 
superstitions of the monks that this missal, instead of being 
placed upon a table, was placed upon a tub; which, when 
Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full of 
dead men’s bones, —bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. 
This was supposed to make Harold’s oath a great deal more 
impressive and binding. As if the great name of the Creator 
of heaven and earth could be made more solemn by a knuckle¬ 
bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail, of Dunstan! 

Within a week or two after Harold’s return to England, the 
dreary old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering 
in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had 
put himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was 
alive, they praised him lustily when he was dead. They had 
gone so far already as to persuade him that he could work 
miracles; and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


41 


of the skin to him, to be touched and cured. This was called 
“touching for the king’s evil,” which afterwards became a 
royal custom. You know, however, who really touched the 
sick, and healed them; and you know his sacred name is not 
among the dusty line of human kings. 





42 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER YII 

ENGLAND UNDER IIAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED L ^ THE 

NORMANS 

* 

Harold was crowned king of England on the very day of 
the maudlin Confessor’s funeral. He had good need to be 
quick about it. When the news reached Norman William, 
hunting in his park at Rouen, he dropped his bow, returned 
to his palace, called his nobles to council, and presently sent 
ambassadors to Harold, calling on him to keep his oath, and 
resign the crown. Harold would do no such thing. The 
barons of France leagued together round Duke William for the 
invasion of England. Duke William promised freely to dis¬ 
tribute English wealth and English lands among them. The 
Pope sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring 
containing a hair which he warranted to have grown on the 
head of St. Peter. He blessed the enterprise, and cursed 
Harold; and requested that the Normans would pay “Peter’s 
Pence ” — or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every house 
— a little more regularly in future, if they could make it con¬ 
venient. 

King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a 
vassal of Harold Hardrada, king of Norway. This brother, 
and this Norwegian king, joining their forces against England, 
with Duke William’s help, won a fight in which the English 
were commanded by two nobles, and then besieged York. 
Harold, who was waiting for the Normans on the coast at 
Hastings with his army, marched to Stamford Bridge upon the 
River Derwent to give them instant battle. 

He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by 
their shining spears. Riding round this circle at a distance, 
to survey it, he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue 
mantle and a bright helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled 
and threw him. 



STAMFORD BRIDGE 
















































































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 43 

“Who is that man who has fallen?” Harold asked of one 
of his captains. 

“The king of Norway,” he replied. 

“He is a tall and stately king,” said Harold; “hut his end 
is near.” 

He added, in a little while, “Go yonder to my brother, and 
tell him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of North¬ 
umberland, and rich and powerful in England.” 

The captain rode away, and gave the message. 

“What will he give to my friend the king of Norway?” 
asked the brother. 

“Seven feet of earth for a grave,” replied the captain. 

“No more? ” returned the brother, with a smile. 

“The king of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little 
more,” replied the captain. 

“Ride back!” said the brother, “and tell King Harold to 
make ready for the fight! ” 

He did so very soon. And such a fight King Harold led 
against that force that his brother, and the Norwegian king, 
and every chief of note in all their host, except the Norwegian 
king’s son, Olave, to whom he gave honourable dismissal, were 
left dead upon the field. The victorious army marched to 
York. As King Harold sat there at the feast, in the midst 
of all his company, a stir was heard at the doors; and messen¬ 
gers all covered with mire, from riding far and fast through 
broken ground, came hurrying in, to report that the Normans 
had landed in England. 

The intelligence was true. They had been tossed about by 
contrary winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. A 
part of their own shore, to which they had been driven back, 
was strewn with Norman bodies* But they had once more 
made sail, led by the duke’s own galley, a present from his 
wife, upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood 
pointing towards England. By day, the banner of the Three 
Lions of Normandy, the diverse coloured sails, the gilded 
vanes, the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had glit¬ 
tered in the sun and sunny water; by night, a light had 
sparkled like a star at her masthead. And now, encamped 
near Hastings, with their leader lying in the old Roman castle 
of Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, the land 
for miles around scorched and smoking, fired and pillaged, was 


44 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the whole Norman power, hopeful and strong on English 
ground. 

Harold broke up the feast, and hurried to London. Within 
a week his army was ready. He sent out spies to ascertain 
the Norman strength. William took them, caused them to 
he led through his whole camp, and then dismissed. “The 
Normans,” said these spies to Harold, “are not bearded on 
the upper lip as we English are, but are shorn. They are 
priests.” “My men,” replied Harold, with a laugh, “will 
find those priests good soldiers! ” 

“The Saxons,” reported Duke William’s outposts of Nor¬ 
man soldiers, who were instructed to retire as King Harold’s 
army advanced, “rush on us, through their pillaged country, 
with the fury of madmen.” 

“Let them come, and come soon!” said Duke William. 

Some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but v r ere 
soon abandoned. In the middle of the month of October, in 
the year one thousand and sixty-six, the Normans and the 
English came front to front. All night the armies lay 
encamped before each other, in a part of the country then 
called Senlac, now called (in remembrance of them) Battle. 
With the first dawn of day, they arose. There in the faint 
light were the English on a hill; a wood behind them; in 
their midst, the royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, 
woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones; beneath 
the banner, as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on 
foot, with two of his remaining brothers by his side; around 
them, still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole English 
army, — every soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his 
hand his dreaded English battle-axe. 

On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, 
horsemen, was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great 
battle-cry, “God help us!” burst from the Norman lines. 
The English answered with their own battle-cry, “God’s 
Hood! Holy Kood! ” The Normans then came sweeping 
down the hill to attack the English. 

There was one tall Norman knight who rode before the 
Norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy 
sword and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his coun¬ 
trymen. An English knight, who rode out from the English 
force to meet him, fell by this knight’s hand. Another Eng- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


45 


lish knight rode out, and he fell, too. But then a third rode 
out, and killed the Norman. This was in the first beginning 
of the fight. It soon raged everywhere. 

The English, keeping side by side, in a great mass, cared 
no more for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had 
been showers of Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen 
rode against them, with their battle-axes they cut men and 
horses down. The Normans gave way. The English pressed 
forward. A cry went forth among the Norman troops that 
Duke William was killed. Duke William took off his helmet, 
in order that his face might be distinctly seen, and rode along 
the line before his men. This gave them courage. As they 
turned again to face the English, some of their Norman horse 
divided the pursuing body of the English from the rest; and 
thus all that foremost portion of the English army fell, fighting 
bravely. The main body still remaining firm, heedless of the 
Norman arrows, and with their battle-axes cutting down the 
crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like forests of young 
trees, Duke William pretended to retreat. The eager English 
followed. The Norman army closed again, and fell upon them 
with great slaughter. 

“Still,” said Duke William, “there are thousands of the 
English, firm as rocks around their king. Shoot upward, 
Norman archers, that your arrows may fall down upon their 
faces. ” 

The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. 
Through all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded 
in the air. In- the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, 
heaps upon heaps of dead men lay strewed, a dreadful specta¬ 
cle, all over the ground. King Harold, wounded with an 
arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. His brothers were already 
killed. Twenty Norman knights, whose battered armour had 
flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long, and now 
looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the 
royal banner from the English knights and soldiers, still faith¬ 
fully collected round their blinded king. The king received 
a mortal wound, and dropped. The English broke and fled. 
The Normans rallied, and the day was lost. 

Oh, what a sight beneath the moon and stars! when lights 
were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, 
which was pitched near the spot where Harold fell; and he 


46 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and his knights were carousing within; and soldiers with 
torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for the corpse 
of Harold among piles of dead; and the warrior, worked in 
golden thread and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled 
with blood; and the Three Norman Lions kept watch over the 
field. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


47 


CHAPTER VIII 

ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CONQUEROR 

Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the 
Norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name 
of Battle Abbey, was a rich and splendid place through many 
a troubled year, though now it is a grey ruin overgrown with 
ivy. But the first work he had to do was to conquer the 
English thoroughly; and that, as you know by this time, was 
hard work for any man. 

He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered many 
towns; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant 
country; he destroyed innumerable lives. At length Stigand, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, with other representatives of the 
clergy and the people, went to his camp, and submitted to 
him. Edgar, the insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, was 
proclaimed king by others, but nothing came of it. He fled 
to Scotland afterwards, where his sister, who was young and 
beautiful, married the Scottish king. Edgar himself was not 
important enough for anybody to care much about him. 

On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster 
Abbey, under the title of William the First; but he is best 
known as William the Conqueror. It was a strange corona¬ 
tion. One of the bishops who performed the ceremony asked 
the Normans, in French, if they would have Duke William 
for their king. They answered, Yes. Another of the bishops 
put the same question to the Saxons, in English. They, too, 
answered Yes, with a loud shout. The noise, being heard by 
a guard of Norman horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for 
resistance on the part of the English. The guard instantly set 
fire to the neighbouring houses, and a tumult ensued; in the 
midst of which the king, being left alone in the abbey, with a 
few priests (and they all being in a terrible fright together), 
was hurriedly crowned. When the crown was placed upon 
his head, he swore to govern the English as well as the best 


48 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


of their own monarchs. I dare say you think, as I do, that, 
if we except the Great Alfred, he might pretty easily have 
done that. 

Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last 
disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the 
nobles who had fought against him there, King William seized 
upon, and gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. 
Many great English families of the present time acquired their 
English lands in this way, and are very proud of it. 

But what is got by force must be maintained by force. 
These nobles were obliged to build castles all over England, 
to defend their new property; and, do what he would, the 
king could neither soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. 
He gradually introduced the Norman language and the Norman 
customs; yet, for a long time, the great body of the English 
remained sullen and revengeful. On his going over to Nor¬ 
mandy, to visit his subjects there, the oppressions of his half- 
brother Odo, whom he left in charge of his English kingdom, 
drove the people mad. The men of Kent even invited over, 
to take possession of Dover, their old enemy, Count Eustace 
of Boulogne, who had led the fray when the Dover man was 
slain at his own fireside. The men of Pereford, aided by the 
Welsh, and commanded by a chief named Edric the Wild, 
drove the Normans out of their country. Some of those who 
had been dispossessed of their lands banded together in the 
North of England; some in Scotland; some in the thick woods 
and marshes: and whensoever they could fall upon the Nor¬ 
mans, or upon the English who had submitted to the Normans, 
they fought, despoiled, and murdered, like the desperate out¬ 
laws that they were. Conspiracies were set on foot for a 
general massacre of the Normans, like the old massacre of the 
Danes. In short, the English were in a murderous mood all 
through the kingdom. 

King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came 
back, and tried to pacify the London people by soft words. 
He then set forth to repress the country people by stern deeds. 
Among the towns which he besieged, and where he killed and 
maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, 
young or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, 
Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these 
places, and in many others, fire and sword worked their utmost 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


49 


horrors, and made the land dreadful to behold. The streams 
and rivers were discoloured with blood; the sky was blackened 
with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes; the waysides 
were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal results of con¬ 
quest and ambition! Although William was a harsh and angry 
man, I do not suppose that he deliberately meant to work this 
shocking ruin, when he invaded England. But what he had 
got by the strong hand, he could only keep by the strong 
hand; and in so doing he made England a great grave. 

Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin, came 
over from Ireland with some ships against the Normans, hut 
were defeated. This was scarcely done, when the outlaws in 
the woods so harassed York that the governor sent to the king 
for help. The king despatched a general and a large force to 
occupy the town of Durham. The bishop of that place met 
the general outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as 
he would be in danger there. The general cared nothing for 
the warning, and went in with all his men. That night, on 
every hill within sight of Durham, signal fires were seen to 
blaze. When the morning dawned, the English, who had 
assembled in great strength, forced the gates, rushed into the 
town, and slew the Normans every one. The English after¬ 
wards besought the Danes to come and help them. The Danes 
came, with two hundred and forty ships. The outlawed 
nobles joined them; they captured York, and drove the Nor¬ 
mans out of that city. Then William bribed the Danes to go 
away, and took such vengeance on the English that all the 
former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were 
nothing compared with it. In melancholy songs and doleful 
stories, it was still sung and told by cottage fires on winter 
evenings, a hundred years afterwards, how, in those dreadful 
days of the Normans, there was not, from the Biver Humber 
to the Biver Tyne, one inhabited village left, nor one cultivated 
field, — how there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the 
human creatures and the beasts lay dead together. 

The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of 
Befuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected 
by those marshy grounds, which were difficult of approach, 
they lay among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the 
mists that rose up from the watery earth. Now, there also 
was at that time, over the sea in Flanders, an Englishman 


50 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


I 


named Hereward, whose father had died in his absence, and 
whose property had been given to a Norman. When he heard 
of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the exiled 
English as chanced to wander into that country), he longed for 
revenge; and, joining the outlaws in their camp of refuge, 
became their commander. He was so good a soldier that the 
Normans supposed him to be aided by enchantment. William, 
even after he had made a road three miles in length across the 
Cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed 
enchanter, thought it necessary to engage an old lady, who 
pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little enchant¬ 
ment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was pushed on 
before the troops in a wooden tower; but Hereward very soon 
disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower 
and all. 

The monks of the convent of Ely, near at hand, however, 
who were fond of good living, and who found it very uncom¬ 
fortable to have the country blockaded, and their supplies of 
meat and drink cut off, showed the king a secret way of sur¬ 
prising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated. Whether 
he afterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after kill¬ 
ing sixteen of the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes 
relate that he did), I cannot say. His defeat put an end to 
the Camp of Refuge; and, very soon afterwards, the king, 
victorious both in Scotland and in England, quelled the last 
rebellious English noble. He then surrounded himself with 
Norman lords, enriched by the property of English nobles; 
had a great survey made of all the land in England, which was 
entered as the property of its new owners, on a roll called 
Doomsday Book; obliged the people to put out their fires and 
candles at a certain hour every night, on the ringing of a bell 
which was called the Curfew; introduced the Norman dresses 
and manners; made the Normans masters everywhere, and the 
English servants; turned out the English bishops, and put 
Normans in their places; and showed himself to be the Con¬ 
queror indeed. 

But even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. 
They were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the 
English; and the more he gave, the more they wanted. His 
priests were as greedy as his soldiers. We know of only one 
Norman who plainly told his master the king that he had come 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


51 


with him to England to do his duty as a faithful servant, and 
that property taken by force from other men had no charms for 
him. His name was Guilbert. We should not forget his 
name; for it is good to remember and to honour honest men. 

Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was trou¬ 
bled by quarrels among his sons. He had three living. 
Robert, called Curthose, because of his short legs; William, 
called Rufus, or the Red, from the colour of his hair; and 
Henry, fond of learning, and called, in the Norman language, 
Beauclerc, or Fine-Scholar. When Robert grew up, he asked 
of his father the government of Normandy, which he had 
nominally possessed, as a child, under his mother Matilda. 
The king refusing to grant it, Robert became jealous and dis¬ 
contented; and happening one day, while in this temper, to be 
ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a 
balcony as he was walking before the door, he drew his sword, 
rushed up stairs, and was only prevented by the king himself 
from putting them to death. That same night, he hotly 
departed with some followers from his father’s court, and 
endeavoured to take the castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing 
in this, he shut himself up in another castle in Normandy, 
which the king besieged, and where Robert one day unhorsed 
and nearly killed him without knowing who he was. His 
submission when he discovered his father, and the intercession 
of the queen and others, reconciled them, but not soundly; for 
Robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to court with 
his complaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, 
spending all he got on musicians and dancers; but his mother 
loved him, ahd often, against the king’s command, supplied 
him with money through a messenger named Samson. At 
length the incensed king swore he would tear out Samson’s 
eyes; and Samson, thinking that his only hope of safety was 
in becoming a monk, became one, went on such errands no 
more, and kept his eyes in his head. 

All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange corona¬ 
tion, the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost 
of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All 
his reign he struggled still, with the same object ever before 
him. He was a stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it. 

He loved money, and was particular in his eating; but he 
had only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his 


52 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


love of hunting. He carried it to such a height that he 
ordered whole villages and towns to be swept away to make 
forests for the deer. Not satisfied with sixty-eight royal 
forests, he laid waste an immense district to form another, in 
Hampshire, called the New Forest. The many thousands of 
miserable peasants who saw their little houses pulled down, and 
themselves and children turned into the open country without 
a shelter, detested him for his merciless addition to their many 
sufferings; and when, in the twenty-first year of his reign 
(which proved to be the last), he went over to Rouen, Eng¬ 
land was as full of hatred against him as if every leaf on every 
tree in all his royal forests had been a curse upon his head. 
In the New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons) had 
been gored to death by a stag; and the people said that this 
so cruelly made forest would yet be fatal to others of the 
Conqueror’s race. 

He was engaged in a dispute with the king of France about 
some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with 
that king, he kept his bed, and took medicines; being advised 
by his physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an 
unwieldy size. Word being brought to him that the king of 
France made light of this, and joked about it, he swore in 
a great rage that he should rue his jests. He assembled his 
army, marched into the disputed territory, burnt — his old 
way! — the vines, the crops, and fruit, and set the town of 
Mantes on fire. But in an evil hour; for, as he rode over the 
hot ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon some burning 
embers, started, threw him forward against the pommel of the 
saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six weeks he lay 
dying in a monastery near Rouen, and then made his will, 
giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five 
thousand pounds to Henry. And now his violent deeds lay 
heavy on his mind. He ordered money to be given to many 
English churches and monasteries, and — which was much 
better repentance — released his prisoners of state, some of 
whom had been confined in his dungeons twenty years. 

It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when 
the king was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church 
bell. “What bell is that? ” he faintly asked. They told him 
it was the bell of the chapel of St. Mary. “I commend my 
soul,” said he, “to Mary! ” and died. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


53 


Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider how 
he lay in death! The moment he was dead, his physicians, 
priests, and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne 
might now take place, or what might happen in it, hastened 
away, each man for himself and his own property; the merce¬ 
nary servants of the court began to rob and plunder; the body 
of the king, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, 
and lay alone for hours upon the ground. 0 Conqueror! of 
whom so many great names are proud now, of whom so many 
great names thought nothing then, it were better to have 
conquered one true heart than England! 

By and by the priests came creeping in with prayers and 
candles; and a good knight, named Herluin, undertook (which 
no one else would do) to convey the body to Caen, in Nor¬ 
mandy, in order that it might be buried in St. Stephen’s 
Church there, which the Conqueror had founded. But fire, 
of which he had made such bad use in his life, seemed to 
follow him of itself in death. A great conflagration broke out 
in the town when the body was placed in the church; and 
those present running out to extinguish the flames, it was once 
again left alone. 

It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let 
down in its royal robes into a tomb near the high altar, in 
presence of a great concourse of people, when a loud voice in 
the crowd cried out, “This ground is mine! Upon it stood 
my father’s house. This king despoiled me of both ground 
and house to build this church. In the great name of God, 
I here forbid this body to be covered with the earth that is my 
right!” The- priests and bishops present, knowing the 
speaker’s right, and knowing that the king had often denied 
him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave. 
Even then the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too 
small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, a dreadful smell 
arose, the people hurried out into the air, and for the third 
time it was left alone. 

Where were the Conqueror’s three sons, that they were not 
at their father’s burial? Robert was lounging among min¬ 
strels, dancers, and gamesters in France or Germany. Henry 
was carrying his five thousand pounds safely away in a conven¬ 
ient chest he had got made. William the Red was hurrying to 
England to lay his hands upon the royal treasure and the crown. 


54 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER IX 

ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS 

William the Red, in breathless haste, secured the three 
great forts of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with 
hot speed for Winchester, where the royal treasure was kept. 
The treasurer delivering him the keys, he found that it 
amounted to sixty thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and 
jewels. Possessed of this wealth, he soon persuaded the Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury to crown him, and became William the 
Second, King of England. 

Rufus was no sooner on the throne than he ordered into 
prison again the unhappy state captives whom his father had 
set free, and directed a goldsmith to ornament his father’s 
tomb profusely with gold and silver. It would have been 
more dutiful in him to have attended the sick Conqueror when 
he was dying; but England itself, like this Red King who 
once governed it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for 
dead men whom it treated shabbily when they were alive. 

The king’s brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite 
content to be only duke of that country, and the king’s other 
brother, Pine-Scholar, being quiet enough with his five thou¬ 
sand pounds in a chest, the king flattered himself, we may 
suppose, with the hope of an easy reign. But easy reigns 
were difficult to have in those days. The turbulent Bishop 
Odo (who had blessed the Norman army at the battle of Hast¬ 
ings, and who, I dare say, took all the credit of the victory to 
himself) soon began, in concert with some powerful Norman 
nobles, to trouble the Red King. 

The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who 
had lands in England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold 
both under one sovereign; and greatly preferred a thoughtless, 
good-natured person, such as Robert was, to Rufus; who, 
though far from being an amiable man in any respect, was 
keen, and not to be imposed upon. They declared in Robert’s 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


55 


favour, and retired to their castles (those castles were very 
troublesome to kings) in a sullen humour. The Red King, 
seeing the Normans thus falling from him, revenged himself 
upon them by appealing to the English, to whom he made a 
variety of promises, which he never meant to perform, — in 
particular, promises to soften the cruelty of the Forest Laws; 
and who, in return, so aided him with their valour that Odo 
was besieged in the castle of Rochester, and forced to abandon 
it, and to depart from England for ever; whereupon the other 
rebellious Norman nobles were soon reduced and scattered. 

Then the Red King went over to Normandy, where the 
people suffered greatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. 
The king’s object was to seize upon the duke’s dominions. 
This the duke, of course, prepared to resist; and miserable 
war between the two brothers seemed inevitable, when the 
powerful nobles on both sides, who had seen so much of war, 
interfered to prevent it. A treaty was made. Each of the 
two brothers agreed to give up something of his claims, and 
that the longer liver of the two should inherit all the domin¬ 
ions of the other. When they had come to this loving under¬ 
standing, they embraced, and joined their forces against Fine- 
Scholar, who had bought some territory of Robert with a part 
of his five thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous 
individual in consequence. 

St. Michael’s Mount, in Normandy (there is another St. 
Michael’s Mount in Cornwall wonderfully like it), was then, 
as it is now, a strong place, perched upon the top of a high 
rock, around which, when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving 
no road to the mainland. In this place Fine-Scholar shut 
himself up with his soldiers, and here he was closely besieged 
by his two brothers. At one time, when he was reduced to 
great distress for want of water, the generous Robert not only 
permitted his men to get water, but sent Fine-Scholar wine 
from his own table; and, on being remonstrated with by the 
Red King, said, “What! shall we let our own brother die of 
thirst ? Where shall we get another when he is gone ? ” At 
another time the Red King, riding alone on the shore of the 
bay, looking up at the castle, was taken by two of Fine- 
Scholar’s men, one of whom was about to kill him, when he 
cried out, “Hold, knave! I am the King of England!” 
The story says that the soldier raised him from the ground 



56 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


respectfully and humbly, and that the king took him into his 
service. The story may or may not be true; hut at any rate, 
it is true that Fine-Scholar could not hold out against his 
united brothers, and that he abandoned Mount St. Michael, 
and wandered about, — as poor and forlorn as other scholars 
have been sometimes known to be. 

The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King’s time, and 
were twice defeated, — the second time with the loss of their 
king, Malcolm, and his son. The Welsh became unquiet, too. 
Against them Rufus was less successful; for they fought among 
their native mountains, and did great execution on the king’s 
troops. Robert of Normandy became unquiet, too; and com¬ 
plaining that his brother, the king, did not faithfully perform 
his part of their agreement, took up arms, and obtained assist¬ 
ance from the king of France, whom Rufus, in the end, 
bought off with vast sums of money. England became unquiet, 
too. Lord Mowbray, the powerful Earl of Northumberland, 
headed a great conspiracy to depose the king, and to place 
upon the throne Stephen, the Conqueror’s near relative. The 
plot was discovered; all the chief conspirators were seized; 
some were fined, some were put in prison, some were put to 
death. The Earl of Northumberland himself was shut up in 
a dungeon beneath Windsor Castle, where he died an old man 
thirty long years afterwards. The priests in England were 
more unquiet than any other class or power; for the Red King 
treated them with such small ceremony that he refused to 
appoint new bishops or archbishops when the old ones died, 
but kept all the wealth belonging to those offices in his own 
hands. In return for this the priests wrote his life when he 
was dead, and abused him well. I am inclined to think 
myself that there was little to choose between the priests and 
the Red King; that both sides were greedy and designing, and 
that they were fairly matched. 

The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and 
mean. He had a worthy minister in his favourite, Ralph, 
nicknamed — for almost every famous person had a nickname 
in those rough days — Flambard, or the Firebrand. Once the 
king, being ill, became penitent and made Anselm, a foreign 
priest and a good man, Archbishop of Canterbury. But he no 
sooner got well again than he repented of his repentance, and 
persisted in wrongfully keeping to himself some of the wealth 


V 



( 


ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT, NORMANDY 


















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


57 


belonging to the archbishopric. This led to violent disputes, 
which were aggravated by there being in Rome, at that time, 
two rival Popes; each of whom declared he was the only real, 
original, infallible Pope, who couldn’t make a mistake. At 
last Anselm, knowing the Red King’s character, and not feel¬ 
ing himself safe in England, asked leave to return abroad. 
The Red King gladly gave it; for he knew that as soon as 
Anselm was gone he could begin to store up all the Canterbury 
money again for his own use. 

By such means, and by taxing and oppressing the English 
people in every possible way, the Red King became very rich. 
When he wanted money for any purpose, he raised it by some 
means or other, and cared nothing for the injustice he did, or 
the misery he caused. Having the opportunity of buying from 
Robert the whole duchy of Normandy for five years, he taxed 
the English people more than ever, and made the very con¬ 
vents sell their plate and valuables to supply him with the 
means to make the purchase. But he was as quick and eager 
in putting down revolt as lie was in raising money; for a part 
of the Norman people objecting — very naturally, I think — to 
being sold in this way, he headed an army against them with 
all the speed and energy of his father. He was so impatient 
that he embarked for Normandy in a great gale of wind. And 
when the sailors told him it was dangerous to go to sea in such 
angry weather, he replied, “Hoist sail and awayj Did you 
ever hear of a king who was drowned 1 ” 

You will wonder how it was that even careless Robert came 
to sell his dominions. It happened thus. It had long been 
the custom for many English people to make journeys to Jeru¬ 
salem, which were called pilgrimages, in order that they might 
pray beside the tomb of our Saviour there. Jerusalem belong¬ 
ing to the Turks, and the Turks hating Christianity, these 
Christian travellers were often insulted and ill used. The 
pilgrims bore it patiently for some time; but at length a 
remarkable man, of great earnestness and eloquence, called 
Peter the Hermit, began to preach in various places against 
the Turks, and to declare that it was the duty of good Chris¬ 
tians to drive away those unbelievers from the tomb of our 
Saviour, and to take possession of it and protect it. An 
excitement, such as the world had never known before, was 
created. Thousands and thousands of men, of all ranks and 


58 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


conditions, departed for Jerusalem to make war against the 
Turks. The war is called in history the First Crusade; and 
every Crusader wore a cross marked on his right shoulder. 

All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among 
them were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and 
adventurous spirits of the time. Some became Crusaders for 
the love of change; some in hope of plunder; some because 
they had nothing to do at home; some because they did what 
the priests told them; some because they liked to see foreign 
countries; some because they were fond of knocking men 
about, and would as soon knock a Turk about as a Christian. 
Robert of Normandy may have been influenced by all these 
motives; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the Christian 
pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He wanted to raise a 
number of armed men, and go to the Crusade. He could not 
do so without money. He had no money; and he sold his 
dominions to his brother, the Red King, for five years. With 
the large sum thus obtained, he fitted out his Crusaders gal¬ 
lantly, and went away to Jerusalem in martial state. The 
Red King, who made money out of everything, stayed at home, 
busily squeezing more money out of Normans and English. 

After three years of great hardship and suffering, from ship¬ 
wreck at sea; from travel in strange lands; from hunger, 
thirst, and fever, upon the burning sands of the desert; and 
from the fury of the Turks, — the valiant Crusaders got posses¬ 
sion of our Saviour’s tomb. The Turks were still resisting 
and fighting bravely, but this success increased the general 
desire in Europe to join the Crusade. Another great French 
duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich 
Red King, when the Red King’s reign came to a sudden and 
violent end. 

You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror 
made, and which the miserable people whose homes he had 
laid waste so hated. The cruelty of the forest laws, and the 
torture and death they brought upon the peasantry, increased 
this hatred. The poor, persecuted country people believed 
that the New Forest was enchanted. They said that in 
thunder-storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared, moving 
beneath the branches of the gloomy trees. They said that a 
terrible spectre had foretold to Norman hunters that the Red 
King should be punished there. And now, in the pleasant 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


59 


season of May, when the Red King had reigned almost thir¬ 
teen years, and a second prince of the Conqueror’s blood — 
another Richard, the son of Duke Robert — was killed by an 
arrow in this dreaded forest, the people said that the second 
time was not the last, and that there was another death to come. 

It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people’s hearts for 
the wicked deeds that had been done to make it; and no man, 
save the king and his courtiers and huntsmen, liked to stray 
there. But, in reality, it was like any other forest. In the 
spring, the green leaves broke out of the buds; in the summer, 
flourished heartily, and made deep shades; in the winter, 
shrivelled, and blew down, and lay in brown heaps on the 
moss. Some trees were stately, and grew high and strong; 
some had fallen of themselves; some were felled by the fores¬ 
ter’s axe; some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at their 
roots; some few were struck by lightning, and stood white 
and bare. There were hillsides covered with rich fern, on 
which the morning dew so beautifully sparkled; there were 
brooks where the deer went down to drink, or over which the 
whole herd bounded, flying from the arrows of the huntsmen; 
there were sunny glades and solemn places where but little 
light came through the rustling leaves. The songs of the 
birds in the New Forest were pleasanter to hear than the 
shouts of fighting men outside; and even when the Red King 
and his court came hunting through its solitudes, cursing loud 
and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and bridles and 
knives and daggers, they did much less harm there than among 
the English or Normans; and the stags died (as they lived) far 
easier than the people. 

Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled to 
his brother, Eine-Scliolar, came with a great train to hunt in 
the New Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were 
a merry party, and had lain all night at Mai wood Keep, a 
hunting-lodge in the forest, where they had made good cheer, 
both at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine. 
The party dispersed in various directions, as the custom of 
hunters then was. The king took with him only Sir Walter 
Tyrrel, who was a famous sportsman, and to whom he had 
given, before they mounted horse that morning, two fine arrows. 

The last time the king was ever seen alive, he was riding 
with Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. 


60 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing 
through the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body 
of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still 
bleeding. He got it into his cart. It was the body of the 
king. Shaken and tumbled, with its red beard all whitened 
with lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in the cart by 
the charcoal-burner next day to Winchester Cathedral, where 
it was received and buried. 

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed 
the protection of the king of France, swore, in France, that 
the Fed King was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an 
unseen hand, while they were hunting together; that he was 
fearful of being suspected as the king’s murderer; and that he 
instantly set spurs to his horse, and fled to the sea-shore. 
Others declared that the king and Sir Walter Tyrrel were 
hunting in company, a little before sunset, standing in bushes 
opposite one another, when a stag came between them; that 
the king drew his bow and took aim, but the string broke; 
that the king then cried, “Shoot, Walter, in the Devil’s 
name!’ 7 that Sir Walter shot; that the arrow glanced against 
a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck the king 
from his horse, dead. 

By whose hand the Bed King really fell, and whether that 
hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by 
design, is only known to God. Some think his brother may 
have caused him to be killed; but the Bed King had made so 
many enemies, both among priests and people, that suspicion 
may reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer. Men 
know no more than that he was found dead in the New Forest, 
which the suffering people had regarded as a doomed ground 
for his race. 



WILLIAM RUFUS STONE; WHERE THE KING FELL 

IN NEW FOREST 












A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


61 


CHAPTER X 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR 

Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red King’s death, hur¬ 
ried to Winchester with as much speed as Rufus himself had 
made, to seize the royal treasure. But the keeper of the 
treasure, who had been one of the hunting-party in the forest, 
made haste to Winchester, too, and, arriving there at about the 
same time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholar 
drew his sword, and threatened to kill the treasurer; who 
might have paid for his fidelity with his life, but that he knew 
longer resistance to he useless, when he found the prince sup¬ 
ported by a company of powerful barons, who declared they 
were determined to make him king. The treasurer, therefore, 
gave up the money and jewels of the crown; and on the third 
day after the death of the Red King, being a Sunday, Fine- 
Scholar stood before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and 
made a solemn declaration that he would resign the Church 
property which his brother had seized; that he would do no 
wrong to the nobles; and that he would restore to the people 
the laws of Edward the Confessor, with all the improvements 
of William the Conqueror. So began the reign of King Henry 
the First. 

The people were attached to their new king, both because 
he had known distresses, and because he was an Englishman 
by birth, and not a Norman. To strengthen this last hold 
upon them, the king wished to marry an English lady; and 
could think of no other wife than Maud the Good, the daugh¬ 
ter of the king of Scotland. Although this good princess did 
not love the king, she was so affected by the representations 
the nobles made to her of the great charity it would be in her 
to unite the Norman and Saxon races, and prevent hatred and 
bloodshed between them for the future, that she consented to 
become his wife. After some disputing among the priests, 
who said that as she had been in a convent in her youth, and 


62 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully he married, 

.— against which the princess stated that her aunt, with whom 
she had lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a 
piece of black stuff over her, but for no other reason than 
because the nun’s veil was the only dress the conquering Nor¬ 
mans respected in girl or woman, and not because she had 
taken the vows of a nun, which she never had, — she was 
declared free to marry, and was made King Henry’s queem 
A good queen she was, — beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy 
of a better husband than the king. 

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm 
and clever. He cared very little for his word, and took any 
means to gain his ends. All this is shown in his treatment of 
his brother Robert, — Robert, who had suffered him to be 
refreshed with water, and who had sent him the wine from his 
own table, when he was shut up, with the crows flying below 
him, parched with thirst, in the castle on the top of St. 
Michael’s Mount, where his Red brother would have let him 
die. 

Before the king began to deal with Robert, he removed and 
disgraced all the favourites of the late king; who were for the 
most part base characters, much detested by the people. 
Flambard, or Firebrand, whom the late king had made Bishop 
of Durham, of all things in the world, Henry imprisoned in 
the Tower; but Firebrand was a great joker and a jolly com¬ 
panion, and made himself so popular with his guards that 
they pretended to know nothing about a long rope that was 
sent into his prison at the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. 
The guards took the wine, and Firebrand took the rope; with 
which, when they were fast asleep, he let himself down from 
a window in the night, and so got cleverly aboard ship and 
away to Normandy. 

Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the 
throne, was still absent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended 
that Robert had been made sovereign of that country, and he 
had been away so long that the ignorant people believed it. 
But, behold, when Henry had been some time king of Eng¬ 
land, Robert came home to Normandy; having leisurely 
returned from Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful 
country he had enjoyed himself very much, and had married 
a lady as beautiful as itself. In Normandy, he found Fire- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


63 


brand waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English 
crown, and declare war against King Henry. This, after great 
loss of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful Italian 
wife among his Norman friends, he at last did. 

The English in general were on King Henry’s side, though 
many of the Normans were on Robert’s. But the English 
sailors deserted the king, and took a great part of the Eng¬ 
lish fleet over to Normandy; so that Robert came to invade 
this country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships. The 
virtuous Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back 
from abroad, and made Archbishop of Canterbury, was stead¬ 
fast in the king’s cause; and it was so well supported that the 
two armies, instead of fighting, made a peace. Poor Robert, 
who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his 
brother, the king; and agreed to go home and receive a pen¬ 
sion from England, on condition that all his followers were 
fully pardoned. This the king very faithfully promised; but 
Robert was no sooner gone than he began to punish them. 

Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being 
summoned by the king to answer to five-and-forty accusations, 
rode away to one of his strong castles, shut himself up therein, 
called around him his tenants and vassals, and fought for his 
liberty, but was defeated and banished. Robert, with all his 
faults, was so true to his word that, when he first heard of 
this nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid waste 
the Earl of Shrewsbury’s estates in Normandy to show the 
king that he would favour no breach of their treaty. Finding, 
on better information, afterwards, that the earl’s only crime 
was having been his friend, he came over to England, in his old 
thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede with the king, and 
remind him of the solemn promise to pardon all his followers. 

This confidence might have put the false king to the blush, 
but it did not. Pretending to be very friendly, he so sur¬ 
rounded his brother with spies and traps that Robert, who 
was quite in his power, had nothing for it but to renounce his 
pension, and escape while he could. Getting home to Nor¬ 
mandy, and understanding the king better now, he naturally 
allied himself with his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who 
had still thirty castles in that country. This was exactly what 
Henry wanted. He immediately declared that Robert had 
broken the treaty, and next year invaded Normandy. 


64 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their 
own request, from his brother’s misrule. There is reason to 
fear that his misrule was bad enough; for his beautiful wife 
had died, leaving him with an infant son; and his court was 
again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated that it was said 
he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes to put on, 
— his attendants having stolen all his dresses. But he headed 
his army like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though he 
had the misfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry, with 
four hundred of his knights. Among them was poor harmless 
Edgar Atheling, who loved Bobert well. Edgar was not 
important enough to be severe with. The king afterwards 
gave him a small pension, which he lived upon and died upon, 
in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of England. 

And Bobert, — poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless 
Bobert, with so many faults, and yet with virtues that might 
have made a better and a happier man, — what was the end of 
him? If the king had had the magnanimity to say with a 
kind air, “Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from 
this time you will be my faithful follower and friend, and 
never raise your hand against me or my forces more,” he might 
have trusted Bobert to the death. But the king was not a 
magnanimous man. He sentenced his brother to be confined 
for life in one of the royal castles. In the beginning of his 
imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded; but he 
one day broke away from his guard, and galloped off. He had 
the evil fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse stuck 
fast, and he was taken. When the king heard of it, he ordered 
him to be blinded; which was done by putting a red-hot metal 
basin on his eyes. 

And so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought 
of all his past life, — of the time he had wasted, of the treas¬ 
ure he had squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the 
youth he had thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. 
Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would sit and think 
of the old hunting-parties in the free forest, where he had been 
the foremost and the gayest. Sometimes, in the still nights, 
he would wake, and mourn for the many nights that had stolen 
past him at the gaming-table; sometimes would seem to hear, 
upon the melancholy wind, the old songs of the minstrels; 
sometimes would dream, in his blindness, of the light and 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


65 


glitter of the Norman court. Many and many a time, he 
groped hack, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had fought 
so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his 
feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in 
Italy, and seemed again to walk among the sunny vineyards, 
or on the shore of the blue sea, with his lovely wife. And 
then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy, he 
would stretch out his solitary arms and weep. 

At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel 
and disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his 
jailer’s sight, but on which the eternal heavens looked down, 
a worn old man of eighty. He had once been Robert of Nor¬ 
mandy. Pity him! 

At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner 
by his brother, Robert’s little son was only five years old. 
This child was taken, too, and carried before the king, sobbing 
and crying; for, young as he was, he knew he had good reason 
to be afraid of his royal uncle. The king was not much accus¬ 
tomed to pity those who were in his power, but his cold heart 
seemed for the moment to soften towards the boy. He was 
observed to make a great effort, as if to prevent himself from 
being cruel, and ordered the child to be taken away; where¬ 
upon a certain baron, who had married a daughter of Duke 
Robert’s (by name Helie of St. Saen), took charge of him 
tenderly. The king’s gentleness did not last long. Before 
two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord’s castle 
to seize the child and bring him away. The baron was not 
there a£ the time; but his servants were faithful, and carried 
the boy off in his sleep and hid him. When the baron came 
home, and was told what the king had done, he took the child 
abroad, and, leading him by the hand, went from king to king 
and from court to court, relating how the child had a claim to 
the throne of England, and how his uncle the king, knowing 
that he had that claim, would have murdered him, perhaps, 
but for his escape. 

The youth and innocence of the pretty little William Fitz- 
Robert (for that was his name) made him many friends at that 
time. When he became a young man, the king of France, 
uniting with the French Counts of Anjou and Flanders, sup¬ 
ported his cause against the king of England, and took many 
of the king’s towns and castles in Normandy. But King 


66 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Henry, artful and cunning always, bribed some of W illiam s 
friends with money, some with promises, some with power. 
He bought off the Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his 
eldest son, also named William, to the count’s daughter; and 
indeed the whole trust of this king’s life was in such bargains; 
and he believed (as many another king has done since, and as 
one king did in France a very little time ago) that every man’s 
truth and honour can be bought at some price. For all this, 
he was so afraid of William Fitz-Robert and his friends that 
for a long time he believed his life to be in danger; and never 
lay down to sleep, even in his palace, surrounded by his 
guards, without having a sword and buckler at his bedside. 

To strengthen his power, the king with great ceremony 
betrothed his eldest daughter, Matilda, then a child only eight 
years old, to be the wife of Henry the Fifth, the emperor of 
Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he taxed the Eng¬ 
lish people in a most oppressive manner; then treated them 
to a great procession, to restore their good-humour; and sent 
Matilda away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, to 
be educated in the country of her future husband. 

And now his queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It 
was a sad thought for that gentle lady that the only hope with 
which she had married a man whom she had never loved — 
the hope of reconciling the Norman and English races — had 
failed. At the very time of her death, Normandy and all 
France was in arms against England; for, so soon as his last 
danger was over, King Henry had been false to all the French 
powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and they had 
naturally united against him. After some fighting, however, 
in which few suffered but the unhappy common people (who 
always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began to 
promise, bribe, and buy again, and by those means, and by 
the help of the Pope, who exerted himself to save more blood¬ 
shed, and by solemnly declaring, over and over again, that he 
really was in earnest this time, and would keep his word, the 
king made peace. 

One of the first consequences of this peace was that the king 
went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and a 
great retinue, to have the prince acknowledged as his successor 
by the Norman nobles, and to contract the promised marriage 
(this was one of the many promises the king had broken) 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


67 


between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both 
these things were triumphantly done, with great show and 
rejoicing; and on the twenty-fifth of November, in the year 
1120, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the port of 
Barfleur, for the voyage home. 

On that day, and at that place, there came to the king, 
Fitz-Stephen, a sea-captain, and said: — 

“ My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon 
the sea. He steered the ship, with the golden boy upon the 
prow, in which your father sailed to conquer England. I 
beseech you to grant me the same office. I have a fair vessel 
in the harbour here, called The White Ship, manned by fifty 
sailors of renown. I pray you, sire, to let your servant have 
the honour of steering you in The White Ship to England! ” 

11 1 am sorry, friend,” replied the king, u that my vessel is 
already chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son 
of the man who served my father. But the prince and all his 
company shall go along with you, in the fair White Ship, 
manned by the fifty sailors of renown.” 

An hour or two afterward, the king set sail in the vessel 
he had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all 
night with a fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of 
England in the morning. While it was yet night, the people 
in some of those ships heard a faint wild cry come over the 
sea, and wondered what it was. 

Now the prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of 
eighteen, who bore no love to the English, and had declared 
that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the 
plough like oxen. He went aboard The White Ship, with one 
hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among whom 
were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gay 
company, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made three 
hundred souls aboard the fair White Ship. 

“ Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,” said the prince, 
“ to the fifty sailors of renown. My father, the king, has 
sailed out of the harbour. What time is there to make merry 
here, and yet reach England with the rest ? ” 

“ Prince,” said Fitz-Stephen, “ before morning my fifty and 
The White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attend¬ 
ance on your father, the king, if we sail at midnight! ” 

Then the prince commanded to make merry ; and the sailors 


68 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

drank out the three casks of wine, and the prince and all the 
noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of The 
White Ship. 

When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there 
was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, 
and the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. 
The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in 
mantles of various bright colours to protect them from the 
cold, talked, laughed, and sang. The prince encouraged the 
fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honour of The AYhite 
Ship. 

Crash ! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It 
was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the king heard 
faintly on the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock, 
— was filling, — going down ! 

Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few 
nobles. “ Push off,” he whispered, “ and row to the land. 
It is not so far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must 
die.” 

But as they rowed away fast from the sinking ship, the 
prince heard the voice of his sister Marie, the Countess of 
Perche, calling for help. He never in his life had been so 
good as he was then. He cried in an agony, “ Bow back at 
any risk ! I cannot bear to leave her ! ” 

They rowed back. As the prince held out his arms to catch 
his sister, such numbers leaped in that the boat was overset. 
And in the same instant The White Ship w r ent down. 

Only two men floated. They both clung to the mainyard 
of the ship, which had broken from the mast, and now sup¬ 
ported them. One asked the other who he was ? He said, “ I 
am a nobleman, Godrey by name, the son of Gilbert de l’Aigle. 
And you? ” said he. “I am Berold, a poor butcher of Bouen,” 
was the answer. Then they said together, “Lord, be merciful 
to us both! ” and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted 
in the cold benumbing sea on that unfortunate November night. 

By and by, another man came swimming towards them, 
whom they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to 
be Fitz-Stephen. “Where is the prince?” said he. “Gone, 
gone! ” the two cried together. “Neither he, nor his brother, 
nor his sister, nor the king’s niece, nor her brother, nor any 
one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


69 


we three, has risen above the water! ” Fitz-Stephen, with a 
ghastly face, cried, “Woe! woe to me!” and sunk to the 
bottom. 

The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length 
the young noble said faintly, “I am exhausted, and chilled 
with the cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend! 
God preserve you! ” So he dropped and sunk; and of all the 
brilliant crowd, the poor butcher of Rouen alone was saved. 
In the morning, some fishermen saw him floating in his sheep¬ 
skin coat, and got him into their boat, — the sole relater of the 
dismal tale. 

For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the 
king. At length they sent into his presence a little boy, who 
weeping bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that The 
White Ship was lost with all on board. The king fell to the 
ground like a dead man, and never, never afterwards was seen 
to smile. 

But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and 
bought again, in his old deceitful way. Having no son to 
succeed him, after all his pains (“The prince will never yoke 
us to the plough now!” said the English people), he took a 
second wife,—Adelais or Alice, a duke’s daughter, and the 
Pope’s niece. Having no more children, however, he proposed 
to the barons to swear that they would recognise as his suc¬ 
cessor his daughter Matilda, whom, as she was now a widow, 
he married to the eldest son of the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey, 
surnamed Plantagenet, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig 
of flowering broom (called genet in French) in his cap for a 
feather. As one false man usually makes many, and as a false 
king, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false court, the 
barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her 
children after her) twice over, without in the least intending 
to keep it. The king was now relieved from any remaining 
fears of William Fitz-Robert, by his death in the monastery of 
St. Omer, in France, at twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound 
in the hand. And, as Matilda gave birth to three sons, he 
thought the succession to the throne secure. 

He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was 
troubled by family quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. 
When he had reigned upwards of thirty-five years, and was 
sixty-seven years old, he died of an indigestion and fever, 


70 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


brought on by eating, when he was far from well, of a fish 
called lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned by 
his physicians. His remains were brought over to Reading 
Abbey to be buried. 

You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of 
King Henry the First called “policy” by some people, and 
“diplomacy” by others. Neither of these fine words will in 
the least mean that it was true; and nothing that is not true 
can possibly be good. 

His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning. 
I should have given him greater credit even for that, if it had 
been strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of a certain 
poet he once took prisoner, who was a knight besides. But he 
ordered the poet’s eyes to be torn from his head, because’ he 
had laughed at him in his verses ; and the poet, in the pain of 
that torture, dashed out his own brains against his prison-wall. 
King Henry the First was avaricious, revengeful, and so false 
that I suppose a man never lived whose word was less to be 
relied upon. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


71 


* 


CHAPTER XI 

ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN 

The king was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes 
he had laboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled 
away like a hollow heap of sand. Stephen, whom he had 
never mistrusted or suspected, started up to claim the throne. 

Stephen was the son of Adela, the Conqueror’s daughter, 
married to the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother 
Henry, the late king had been liberal; making Henry Bishop 
of Winchester, and finding a good marriage for Stephen, and 
much enriching him. This did not prevent Stephen from has¬ 
tily producing a false witness, a servant of the late king, to 
swear that the king had named him for his heir upon his death¬ 
bed. On this evidence the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned 
him. The new king, so suddenly made, lost not a moment in 
seizing the royal treasure, and hiring foreign soldiers with some 
of it to protect his throne. 

If the dead king had even done as the false witness said, he 
would have had small right to will away the English people, 
like so many sheep or oxen, without their consent. But he 
had, in fact, bequeathed all his territory to Matilda; who, 
supported by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, soon began to dispute 
the crown. Some of the powerful barons and priests took her 
side; some took Stephen’s; all fortified their castles; and 
again the miserable English people were involved in war, from 
which they could never derive advantage whosoever was victo¬ 
rious, and in which all parties plundered, tortured, starved, 
and ruined them. 

Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First, — 
and during those five years there had been two terrible inva¬ 
sions by the people of Scotland under their king, David, who 
was at last defeated with all his army, — when Matilda, 
attended by her brother Robert and a large force, appeared in 
England to maintain her claim. A battle was fought between 



72 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


her troops and King Stephen’s, at Lincoln; in which the king 
himself was taken prisoner, after bravely fighting until his 
battle-axe and sword were broken, and was carried into strict 
confinement at Gloucester. Matilda then submitted herself to 
the priests, and the priests crowned her queen of England. 

She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London 
had a great affection for Stephen; many of the barons consid¬ 
ered it degrading to be ruled by a woman; and the queen’s 
temper was so haughty that she made innumerable enemies. 
The people of London revolted; and, in alliance with the 
troops of Stephen, besieged her at Winchester, where they 
took her brother Robert prisoner, whom, as her best soldier 
and chief general, she was glad to exchange for Stephen him¬ 
self, who thus regained his liberty. Then the long war went 
on afresh. Once she was pressed so hard in the castle of 
Oxford, in the winter weather, when the snow lay thick upon 
the ground, that her only chance of escape was to dress herself 
all in white, and, accompanied by no more than three faithful 
knights, dressed in like manner, that their figures might not 
be seen from Stephen’s camp as they passed over the snow, to 
steal away on foot, cross the frozen Thames, walk a long dis¬ 
tance, and at last gallop away on horseback. All this .she did, 
but to no great purpose then; for her brother dying while the 
struggle was yet going on, she at last withdrew to Normandy. 

In two or three years after her withdrawal her cause 
appeared in England, afresh, in the person of her son Henry, 
young Plantagenet, who, at only eighteen years of age, was 
very powerful, not only on account of his mother having 
resigned all Normandy to him, but also from his having married 
Eleanor, the divorced wife of the French king, a bad woman, 
who had great possessions in France. Louis, the French king, 
not relishing this arrangement, helped Eustace, King Stephen’s 
son, to invade Normandy; but Henry drove their united forces 
out of that country, and then returned here to assist his parti¬ 
sans, whom the king was then besieging at Wallingford upon 
the Thames. Here for two days, divided only by the river, 
the two armies lay encamped opposite to one another, — on the 
eve, as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when 
the Earl of Arundel took heart, and said, “that it was not 
reasonable to prolong the unspeakable miseries of two kino-. 
doms to minister to the ambition of two princes.” 



WINCHESTER 

















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


73 


Many other noblemen, repeating and supporting this when 
it was once uttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went 
down, each to his own bank of the river, and held a conver¬ 
sation across it, in which they arranged a truce; very much 
to the dissatisfaction of Eustace, who swaggered away with 
some followers, and laid violent hands on the abbey of St. 
Edmund’s-Bury, where he presently died mad. The truce led 
to a solemn council at Winchester, in which it was agreed that 
Stephen should retain the crown, on condition of his declaring 
Henry his successor; that William, another son of the king’s, 
should inherit his father’s rightful possessions; and that all 
the crown-lands which Stephen had given away should be 
recalled, and all the castles he had permitted to be built 
demolished. Thus terminated the bitter war, which had now 
lasted fifteen years, and had again laid England waste. In the 
next year Stephen died, after a troubled reign of nineteen 
years. 

Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, 
a humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities; 
and although nothing worse is known of him than his usurpa¬ 
tion of the crown, which he probably excused to himself by 
the consideration that King Henry the First was an usurper 
too, — which was no excuse at all, — the people of England 
suffered more in these dread nineteen years than at any former 
period even of their suffering history. In the division of the 
nobility between the two rival claimants of the crown, and in 
the growth of what is called the Feudal System (which made 
the peasants the born vassals and mere slaves of the barons), 
every noble had his strong castle, where he reigned the cruel 
king of all the neighbouring people. Accordingly, he perpe¬ 
trated whatever cruelties he chose; and never were worse 
cruelties committed upon earth than in wretched England in 
those nineteen years. 

The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. 
They say that the castles were filled with devils rather than 
with men; that the peasants, men and women, were put into 
dungeons for their gold and silver, were tortured with fire and 
smoke, were hung up by the thumbs, were hung up by the 
heels with great weights to their heads, were torn with jagged 
irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chests 
filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish 


74 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


ways. In England there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no 
butter; there were no tilled lands, no harvests. Ashes of 
burnt towns and dreary wastes were all that the traveller, 
fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at all hours, would 
see in a long day’s journey; and from sunrise until night he 
would not come upon a home. 

The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily, too, from pil¬ 
lage; hut many of them had castles of their own, and fought 
in helmet and armour like the barons, and drew lots with other 
fighting men for their share of booty. The Pope (or Bishop 
of Pome), on King Stephen’s resisting his ambition, laid Eng¬ 
land under an interdict at one period of this reign; which 
means, that he allowed no service to he performed in the 
churches, no couples to be married, no hells to he rung, no 
dead bodies to be buried. Any man having the power to 
refuse these things, no matter whether he were called a pope 
or a poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflicting 
numbers of innocent people. That nothing might be want¬ 
ing to the miseries of King Stephen’s time, the Pope threw 
in this contribution to the public store, — not very like the 
widow’s contribution, as I think, when our Saviour sat in Jeru¬ 
salem over against the treasury, “and she threw in two mites, 
which make a farthing. ” 



A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


75 


CHAPTER, XII 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND 

PART THE FIRST 

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years 
old, quietly succeeded to the throne of England, according to 
his agreement made with the late king at Winchester. Six 
weeks after Stephen’s death, he and his queen, Eleanor, were 
crowned in that city; into which they rode on horseback in 
great state, side by side, amidst much shouting and rejoicing, 
and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers. 

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The 
king had great possessions, and (what with his own rights, and 
what with those of his wife) was lord of one-third part of 
Erance. He was a young man of vigour, ability, and resolu¬ 
tion, and immediately applied himself to remove some of the 
evils which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. He revoked 
all the grants of land that had been hastily made on either side 
during the late struggles; he obliged numbers of disorderly 
soldiers to depart from England; he reclaimed all the castles 
belonging to the crown; and he forced the wicked nobles to pull 
down their own castles, to the number of eleven hundred, in 
which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted oil the people. 
The king’s brother, Geoffrey, rose against him in France, 
while he was so well employed, and rendered it necessary for 
him to repair to that country; where, after he had subdued 
and made a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did 
not live long), his ambition to increase his possessions involved 
him in a war with the French king, Louis, with whom he had 
been on such friendly terms just before that, to the French 
king’s infant daughter, then a baby in the cradle, he had 
promised one of his little sons in marriage, who was a child of 
five years old. However, the war came to nothing at last, 
and the Pope made the two kings friends again. 


76 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Now the clergy in the troubles of the last reign had gone 
on very ill, indeed. There were all kinds of criminals among 
them,—murderers, thieves, and vagabonds; and the worse of 
the matter was that the good priests would not give up the 
bad priests to justice when they committed crimes, but per¬ 
sisted in sheltering and defending them. The king, well 
knowing that there could be no peace or rest in England while 
such things lasted, resolved to reduce the power of the clergy, 
and, when he had reigned seven years, found (as he considered) 
a good opportunity for doing so in the death of the Archbishop 
of Canterbury. “I will have for the new archbishop,” 
thought the king, “a friend in whom I can trust, who will 
help me to humble these rebellious priests, and have them 
dealt with when they do wrong as other men who do wrong 
are dealt with.” So he resolved to make his favourite the 
new archbishop; and this favourite was so extraordinary a 
man, and his story is so curious, that I must tell you all about 
him. 

Once upon a time a worthy merchant of London, named 
Gilbert a Becket, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated 
him kindly, and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who 
fell in love with the merchant, and who told him that she 
wanted to become a Christian, and was willing to marry him if 
they could fly to a Christian country. The merchant returned 
her love until he found an opportunity to escape, when he did 
not .trouble himself about the Saracen lady, but escaped with 
his servant Bichard, who had been taken prisoner along with 
him, and arrived in England, and forgot her. The Saracen 
lady, who was more loving than the merchant, left her father’s 
house in disguise to follow him, and made her way under 
many hardships to the sea-shore. The merchant had taught 
her only two English words (for I suppose he must have learnt 
the Saracen tongue himself, and made love in that language), 
of which London was one, and his own name, Gilbert, the 
other. She went among the ships, saying, “London, Lon¬ 
don ! ” over and over again, until the sailors understood that 
she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her 
there; so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her 
passage with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well, the 
merchant was sitting in his counting-house in London one 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


77 


day, when he heard a great noise in the street, and presently 
Richard came running in from the warehouse, with his eyes 
wide open and his breath almost gone, saying, “Master, 
master, here is the Saracen lady! ” The merchant thought 
Richard was mad; hut Richard said, “No, master; as I live, 
the Saracen lady is going up and down the city, calling, 

‘ Gilbert, Gilbert! ’ ” Then he took the merchant by the 
sleove, and pointed out at window; and there they saw her 
among the gables and water-spouts of the dark, dirty street, 
in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by a wondering 
crowd, and passing slowly along, calling, “Gilbert, Gilbert \” 
When the merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness 
she had shown him in his captivity, and of her constancy, his 
heart was moved, and he ran down into the street; and she 
saw him coming, and with a great cry fainted in his arms. 
They were married without loss of time, and Richard (who 
was an excellent man) danced with joy the whole day of the 
wedding; and they all lived happy ever afterwards. 

This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, Thomas 
a Becket. He it was who became the favourite of King 
Henry the Second. 

He had become chancellor, when the king thought of 
making him archbishop. He was clever, gay, well-educated, 
brave; had fought in several battles in France; had defeated 
a French knight in single combat, and brought his horse away 
as a token of the victory. He lived in a noble palace, he was 
the tutor of the young Prince Henry, he was served by one 
hundred and forty knights, his riches were immense. The 
kins once sent him as his ambassador to France; and the 
French people, beholding in what state he travelled, cried out 
in the streets, “ How splendid must the king of England be, 
when this is only the chancellor! ” They had good reason to 
wonder at the magnificence of Thomas a Becket; for when he 
entered a French town, his procession was headed by two hun¬ 
dred and fifty singing boys; then came his hounds in couples; 
then eight wagons, each drawn by five horses, driven by five 
drivers; two of the wagons filled with strong ale to be given 
away to the people; four with his gold and silver plate and 
stately clothes; two with the dresses of his numerous servants. 
Then came twelve horses, each with a monkey on his back; 
then a train of people bearing shields, and leading fine war- 


78 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


horses, splendidly equipped; then falconers with hawks upon 
their wrists; then a host of knights and gentlemen and priests; 
then the chancellor, with his brilliant garments flashing in the 
sun, and all the people capering and shouting with delight. 

The king was well pleased with all this, thinking that it 
only made himself the more magnificent to have so magnificent 
a favourite; but he sometimes jested with the chancellor upon 
his splendour, too. Once, when they were riding together 
through the streets of London in hard winter weather, they 
saw a shivering old man in rags. “Look at the poor object,” 
said the king. “Would it not be a charitable act to give that 
aged man a comfortable warm cloak?” “Undoubtedly it 
would,” said Thomas k Becket; “and you do well, sir, to 
think of such Christian duties.” — “Come,” cried the king, 
“then give him your cloak!” It was made of rich crimson 
trimmed with ermine. The king tried to pull it off; the 
chancellor tried to keep it on. Both were near rolling from 
their saddles in the mud, when the chancellor submitted, and 
the king gave the cloak to the old beggar, much to the beggar’s 
astonishment, and much to the merriment of all the courtiers 
in attendance; for courtiers are not only eager to laugh when 
the king laughs, but they really do enjoy a laugh against a 
favourite. 

“I will make,” thought King Henry the Second, “this 
chancellor of mine, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canter¬ 
bury. He will then be the head of the Church, and, being 
devoted to me, will help me to correct the Church. He has 
always upheld my power against the power of the clergy, and 
once publicly told some bishops (I remember) that men of the 
Church were equally bound to me with men of the sword. 
Thomas a Becket is the man, of all other men in England, to 
help me in my great design.” So the king, regardless of all 
objection, either that he was a fighting man, or a lavish man, 
or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but a 
likely man for the office, made him archbishop accordingly. 

Now Thomas h Becket was proud, and loved to be famous. 
He was already famous for the pomp of his life, — for his 
riches, his gold and silver plate, his wagons, horses, and atten¬ 
dants. He could do no more in that way than he had done; 
and, being tired of that kind of fame (which is a poor one), he 
longed to have his name celebrated for something else. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


79 


Nothing, lie knew, would render him so famous in the world 
as the setting of his utmost power and ability against the 
utmost power and ability of the king. He resolved with the 
whole strength of his mind to do it. 

He may have had some secret grudge against the king 
besides. The king may have offended his proud humour at 
some time or other, for anything I know. I think it likely; 
because it is a common thing for kings, princes, and other 
great people, to try the tempers of their favourites rather 
severely. Even the little affair of the crimson cloak must 
have been anything but a pleasant one to a haughty man. 
Thomas h Becket knew better than any one in England what 
the king expected of him. In all his sumptuous life, he had 
never yet been in a position to disappoint the king. He could 
take up that proud stand now, as head of the Church; and he 
determined that it should be written in history, either that he 
subdued the king, or that the king subdued him. 

So, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner of 
his life. He turned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse 
food, drank bitter water, wore next his skin sackcloth covered 
with dirt and vermin (for it was then thought very religious 
to be very dirty), flogged his back to punish himself, lived 
chiefly in a little cell, washed the feet of thirteen poor people 
every day, and looked as miserable as he possibly could. If 
he had put twelve hundred monkeys on horseback instead of 
twelve, and had gone in procession with eight thousand wagons 
instead of eight, he could not have half astonished the people 
so much as by this great change. It soon caused him to be 
more talked about as an archbishop than he had been as a 
chancellor. 

The king was very angry; and was made still more so, when 
the new archbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles 
as being rightfully Church property, required the king himself, 
for the same reason, to give up Rochester Castle, and Roches¬ 
ter City, too. Not satisfied with this, he declared that no 
power but himself should appoint a priest to any church in the 
part of England over which he was archbishop; and when a 
certain gentleman of Kent made such an appointment, as he 
claimed to have the right to do, Thomas h Becket excommuni¬ 
cated him. 

Excommunication was, next to the interdict I told you of 


80 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

at the close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. 
It consisted in declaring the person who was excommunicated 
an outcast from the Church and from all religious offices; and 
in cursing him all over, from the top of his head to the sole 
of his foot, whether he was standing up, lying down, sitting, 
kneeling, walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, cough¬ 
ing, sneezing, or whatever else he was doing. This unchris¬ 
tian nonsense would of course have made no sort of difference 
to the person cursed, — who could say his prayers at home if 
he were shut out of church, and whom none but God could 
judge, —but for the fears and superstitions of the people, who 
avoided excommunicated persons, and made their lives un¬ 
happy. So the king said to the new archbishop, “Take off 
this excommunication from this gentleman of Kent;” to which 
the archbishop replied, “I shall do no such thing.” 

The quarrel went on. A priest in Worcestershire committed 
a most dreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the whole 
nation. The king demanded to have this wretch delivered up, 
to be tried in the same court and in the same way as any other 
murderer. The archbishop refused, and kept him in the 
bishop’s prison. The king, holding a solemn assembly in 
Westminster Hall, demanded that in future all priests found 
guilty before their bishops of crimes against the law of the 
land should be considered priests no longer, and should be 
delivered over to the law of the land for punishment. The 
archbishop again refused. The king required to know whether 
the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the country 1 
Every priest there, but one, said, after Thomas a Becket, “ Saving 
my order.” This really meant that they would only obey 
those customs when they did not interfere with their own 
claims; and the king went out of the hall in great wrath. 

Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were going 
too far. Though Thomas a Becket was otherwise as unmoved 
as Westminster Hall, they prevailed upon him, for the sake of 
their fears, to go to the king at Woodstock, and promise to 
observe the ancient customs of the country, without saving 
anything about his order. The king received this submission 
favourably, and summoned a great council of the clergy to 
meet at the Castle of Clarendon, by Salisbury. But when the 
council met, the archbishop again insisted on the words, 
“saving my order;” and he still insisted, though lords 



A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


81 


entreated him, and priests wept before him and knelt to him, 
and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with armed 
soldiers of the king, to threaten him. At length he gave way, 
for that time; and the ancient customs (which included what 
the king had demanded in vain) were stated in writing, and 
were signed and sealed by the chief of the clergy, and were 
called the Constitutions of Clarendon. 

The quarrel went on, for all that. The archbishop tried to 
see the king. The king would not see him. The archbishop 
tried to escape from England. The sailors on the coast would 
launch no boat to take him away. Then he again resolved to 
do his worst in opposition to the king, and began openly to 
set the ancient customs at defiance. 

The king summoned him before a great council at North¬ 
ampton, where he accused him of high treason, and made a 
claim against him, which was not a just one, for an enormous 
sum of money. Thomas a Becket was alone against the whole 
assembly; and the very bishops advised him to resign his 
office, and abandon his contest with the king. His great 
anxiety and agitation stretched him on a sick-bed for two days, 
but he was still undaunted. He went to the adjourned 
council, carrying a great cross in his right hand, and sat down, 
holding it erect before him. The king angrily retired into an 
inner room. The whole assembly angrily retired, and left 
him there; but there he sat. The bishops came out again 
in a body, and renounced him as a traitor. He only said, “I 
hear! ” and sat there still. They retired again into an inner 
room, and his trial proceeded without him. By and by, the 
Earl oi Leicester, heading the barons, came out to read his 
sentence. He refused to hear it, denied the power of the 
court, and said he would refer his cause to the Pope. As he 
walked out of the hall, with the cross in his hand, some of 
those present picked up rushes, — rushes were strewn upon the 
floors in those days by way of carpet, — and threw them at 
him. He proudly turned his head, and said that, were he 
not archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with the sword 
he had known how to use in bygone days. He then mounted 
his horse, and rode away, cheered and surrounded by the 
common people, to whom he threw open his house that night 
and gave a supper, supping with them himself. That same 
night he secretly departed from the town; and so, travelling 


82 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


by night and hiding by day, and calling himself “Brothel 
Dearman,” got away, not without difficulty, to Flanders. 

The struggle still went on. The angry king took possession 
of the revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the rela¬ 
tions and servants of Thomas a Becket, to the number of four 
hundred. The Pope and the French king both protected him, 
and an abbey was assigned for his residence. Stimulated by 
this support, Thomas a Becket, on a great festival day, for¬ 
mally proceeded to a great church crowded with people, and 
going up into the pulpit publicly cursed and excommunicated 
all who had supported the Constitutions of Clarendon, men¬ 
tioning many English noblemen by name, and not distantly 
hinting at the king of England himself. 

When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the 
king in his chamber, his passion Avas so furious that he tore 
his clothes, and rolled like a madman on his bed of straAv and 
rushes. But he was soon up and doing. He ordered all the 
ports and coasts of England to be narroAvly watched, that no 
letters of interdict might be brought into the kingdom; and 
sent messengers and bribes to the Pope’s palace at Borne. 
Meanwhile, Thomas a Becket, for his part, was not idle at 
Borne, but constantly employed his utmost arts in his own 
behalf. Thus the contest stood, until there was peace between 
France and England (which had been for some time at war), 
and until the tAvo children of the tAvo kings Avere married in 
celebration of it. Then the French king brought about a 
meeting between Henry and his old favourite, so long his 
enemy. 

Even then, though Thomas a Becket knelt before the king, 
he was obstinate and immovable as to those Avords about his 
order. King Louis of France A\ r as weak enough in his venera¬ 
tion for Thomas a Becket, and such men; but this Avas a little 
too much for him. He said that k Becket ‘rivanted to be 
greater than the saints, and better than St. Peter,’ 7 and rode 
aAvay from him Avith the king of England. His poor French 
Majesty asked k Becket’s pardon for so doing, lioAvever, soon 
aftei'Avards, and cut a very pitiful figure. 

At last, and after a Avorld of trouble, it came to this. There 
Avas another meeting on French ground between King Henry 
and Thomas k Becket; and it Avas agreed that Thomas k Becket 
should be Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the customs 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


83 


of former archbishops, and that the king should put him in 
possession of the revenues of that post. And now, indeed, 
you might suppose the struggle at an end, and Thomas a 
Beeket at rest. No: not even yet; for Thomas h Becket 
hearing, by some means, that King Henry, when he was in 
dread of his kingdom being placed under an interdict, had had 
his eldest son, Prince Henry, secretly crowned, not only per¬ 
suaded the Pope to suspend the Archbishop of York, who had 
performed that ceremony, and to excommunicate the bishops 
who had assisted at it, hut sent a messenger of his own into 
England, in spite of all the king’s precautions along the coast, 
who delivered the letters of excommunication into the bishop’s 
own hands. Thomas a Becket then came over to England 
himself, after an absence of seven years. He was privately 
warned that it was dangerous to come, and that an ireful 
knight, named Ranulf de Broc, had threatened that he should 
not live to eat a loaf of bread in England; hut he came. 

The common people received him well, and marched about 
with him in a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons 
as they could get. He tried to see the young prince who had 
once been his pupil, hut was prevented. He hoped for some 
little support among the nobles and priests, hut found none. 
He made the most of the peasants who attended him, and 
feasted them, and went from Canterbury to Harrow-on-tlie- 
Hill, and from Harrow-on-the-Hill hack to Canterbury, and on 
Christmas Day preached in the cathedral there, and told the 
people in his sermon that he had come to die among them, and 
that it was likely he would he murdered. He had no fear, 
however, or, if he had any, he had much more obstinacy; for 
he, then and there, excommunicated three of his enemies, of 
whom Ranulf de Broc, the ireful knight, was one. 

As men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their 
sitting and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest 
of it, it was very natural in the persons so freely excommuni¬ 
cated to complain to the king. It was equally natural in the 
king, who had hoped that this troublesome opponent was at 
last quieted, to fall into a mighty rage when he heard of these 
new affronts; and, on the Archbishop of York telling him that 
he never could hope for rest while Thomas h Becket lived, to 
cry out hastily before his court, “Have I no one here who will 
deliver me from this man ? ” There were four knights present, 


84 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

who, hearing the king’s words, looked at one another, and 
went out. 

The names of these knights were Eeginald Fitzurse, William 
Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Eichard Brito; three of whom 
had been in the train of Thomas a Becket in the old days of 
his splendour. They rode away on horseback, in a very secret 
manner, and on the third day after Christmas Day arrived at 
Saltwood House, not far from Canterbury, which belonged to 
the family of Banulf de Broc. They quietly collected some 
followers here, in case they should need any; and, proceeding 
to Canterbury, suddenly appeared (the four knights and twelve 
men) before the archbishop, in his own house, at two o’clock 
in the afternoon. They neither bowed nor spoke, but sat 
down on the floor in silence, staring at the archbishop. 

Thomas a Becket said, at length, “What do you want? ” 

“We want,” said Eeginald Fitzurse, “the excommunication 
taken from the bishops, and you to answer for your offences 
to the king.” 

Thomas a Becket defiantly replied that the power of the 
clergy was above the power of king; that it was not for such 
men as they were to threaten him; that if he were threatened 
by all the swords in England, he would never yield. 

“Then we will do more than threaten!” said the knights. 
And they went out with the twelve men, and put on their 
armour, and drew their shining swords, and came back. 

His servants, in the mean time, had shut up and barred the 
great gate of the palace. At first, the knights tried to shatter 
it with their battle-axes; but being shown a window by which 
they could enter, they let the gate alone, and climbed in that 
way. While they were battering at the door, the attendants 
of Thomas a Becket had implored him to take refuge in the 
cathedral; in which, as a sanctuary or sacred place, they 
thought the knights would dare to do no violent deed. He 
told them, again and again, that he would not stir. Hearing 
the distant voices of the monks singing the evening service, 
however, he said it was now his duty to attend; and therefore, 
and for no other reason, he would go. 

There was a near way between his palace and the cathedral, 
by some beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. He 
went into the cathedral, without any hurry, and having the 
cross carried before him as usual. When he was safely there, 






r; 


'.Or 


CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 
















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 85 

his servants would have fastened the door; but he said, No: 
it was the house of God, and not a fortress. 

As he spoke, the shadow of Reginald Fitzurse appeared in 
the cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was 
outside, on the dark winter evening. This knight said, in a 
strong voice, “Follow me, loyal servants of the king!” The 
rattle of the armour of the other knights echoed through the 
cathedral, as they came clashing in. 

It was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately 
pillars of the church, and there were so many hiding-places in 
the crypt below and in the narrow passages above, that Thomas 
h Becket might even at that pass have saved himself if he 
would. But he would not. He told the monks resolutely 
that he would not. And though they all dispersed, and left 
him there with no other follower than Edward Gryme, his 
faithful cross-bearer, he was as firm then as ever he had been 
in his life. 

The knights came on, through the darkness, making a terri¬ 
ble noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of 
the church. “Where is the traitor 1 ?” they cried out. He 
made no answer. But when they cried, “ Where is the arch¬ 
bishop 1 ” he said proudly, “ I am here! ” and came out of the 
shade, and stood before them. 

The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the 
king and themselves of him by any other means. They told 
him he must either fly or go with them. He said he would 
do neither; and he threw William Tracy off with such force, 
when he took hold of his sleeve, that Tracy reeled again. By 
his reproaches and his steadiness, he so incensed them, and 
exasperated their fierce humour, that Reginald Fitzurse, whom 
he called by an ill name, said, “ Then die! ” and struck at his 
head. But the faithful Edward Gryme put out his arm, and 
there received the main force of the blow, so that it only made 
his master bleed. Another voice from among the knights 
again called to Thomas a Becket to fly; but with his blood 
running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his head 
bent, he commended himself to God, and stood firm. Then 
they cruelly killed him, close to the altar of St. Bennet; and 
his body fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied with his 
blood and brains. 

It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who 


86 


A child’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

had so showered his curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the 
church, where a few lamps, here and there, were but red specks 
on a pall of darkness; and to think of the guilty knights riding 
away on horseback, looking over their shoulders at the dim 
cathedral, and remembering what they had left inside. 


PART THE SECOND 

When the king heard how Thomas k Becket had lost his life 
in Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four 
knights, he was filled with dismay. Some have supposed that 
when the king spoke those hasty words, “Have I no one here 
who will deliver me from this man ? ” he wushed and meant 
k Becket to be slain. But few things are more unlikely; for, 
besides that the king was not naturally cruel (though very 
passionate), he was wise, and must have known full well what 
any stupid man in his dominions must have known, namely, 
that such a murder would rouse the Pope and the whole 
Church against him. 

He sent respectful messengers to the Pope, to represent his 
innocence (except in having uttered the hasty words); and he 
swore solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived, 
in time, to make his peace. As to the four guilty knights, 
who fled into Yorkshire, and never again dared to show them¬ 
selves at court, the Pope excommunicated them; and they 
lived miserably for some time, shunned by all their country¬ 
men. At last they went humbly to Jerusalem, as a penance, 
and there died and were buried. 

It happened fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope that 
an opportunity arose very soon after the murder of a Becket 
for the king to declare his power in Ireland; which was an 
acceptable undertaking to the Pope, as the Irish, who had 
been converted to Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise St. 
Patrick) long ago, before any pope existed, considered that the 
Pope had nothing at all to do with them, or they with the 
Pope, and accordingly refused to pay him Peter’s Pence, or 
that tax of a penny a house which I have elsewhere mentioned. 
The king’s opportunity arose in this way. 

The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you 
can well imagine. They were continually quarrelling and 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 87 

fighting, cutting one another’s throats, slicing one another's 
noses, burning one another’s houses, carrying away one 
another’s wives, and committing all sorts of violence. The 
country was divided into five kingdoms, — Desmond, Tlio- 
mond, Connaught, Ulster, and Leinster, —each governed by 
a separate king, of whom one claimed to he the chief of the 
rest. Now, one of these kings, named Dermond MacMurrough 
(a wild kind of name, spelt in more than one wild kind of 
way), had carried off the wife of a friend of his, and concealed 
her on an island in a bog. The friend, resenting this (though 
it was quite the custom of the country), complained to the 
chief king, and, with the chief king’s help, drove Dermond 
MacMurrough out of his dominions. Dermond came over to 
England for revenge; and offered to hold his realm as a vassal 
of King Henry, if King Henry would help him to regain it. 
The king consented to these terms; but only assisted him then 
with what were called letters-patent, authorising any English 
subjects, who were so disposed, to enter into his service, and 
aid his cause. 

There was at Bristol a certain Earl Richard de Clare, called 
Strongbow, of no very good character, needy and desperate, 
and ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving 
his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken 
knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called Robert Fitz- 
Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald. These three, each with a 
small band of followers, took up Dermond’s cause; and it was 
agreed that, if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry 
Dermond’s daughter Eva, and be declared his heir. 

The trained English followers of these knights were so 
superior in all the discipline of battle to the Irish that they 
beat them against immense superiority of numbers. In one 
fight, early in the war, they cut off three hundred heads and 
laid them before MacMurrough, who turned them every one 
up with his hands, rejoicing; and coming to one which was 
the head of a man whom he had much disliked, grasped it by 
the hair and ears, and tore off the nose and lips with his teeth. 
You may judge from this what kind of a gentleman an Irish 
king in those times was. The captives, all through this war, 
were horribly treated; the victorious party making nothing of 
breaking their limbs, and casting them into the sea from the 
tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of the miseries and 


88 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

cruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford, where the dead 
lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters ran with blood, 
that Strongbow married Eva. An odious marriage-company 
those mounds of corpses must have made, I think, and one 
quite worthy of the young lady’s father. 

He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and 
various successes achieved; and Strongbow became king of 
Leinster. Now came King Henry’s opportunity. To restrain 
the growing power of Strongbow, he himself repaired to Dub¬ 
lin, as Strongbow’s royal master, and deprived him of his 
kingdom, but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great posses¬ 
sions. The king, then holding state in Dublin, received the 
homage of nearly all the Irish kings and chiefs, and so came 
home again with a great addition to his reputation as Lord of 
Ireland, and with a new claim on the favour of the Pope. 
And now their reconciliation was completed, —-more easily 
and mildly by the Pope than the king might have expected, I 
think. 

At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so 
few and his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries began 
which gradually made the king the most unhappy of men, 
reduced his great spirit, wore away his health, and broke his 
heart. 

He had four sons. Henry, now aged eighteen, — his secret 
crowning of whom had given such offence to Thomas a Becket; 
Bichard, aged sixteen; Geoffrey, fifteen; and John, his favour¬ 
ite, a young boy whom the courtiers named Lackland, because 
he had no inheritance, but to whom the king meant to give 
the Lordship of Ireland. All these misguided boys, in their 
turn, were unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each 
other. Prince Henry, stimulated by the French king, and by 
his bad mother, Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history. 

First, he demanded that his young wife, Margaret, the 
French king’s daughter, should be crowned as well as he. 
His father, the king, consented, and it was done. It was no 
sooner done than he demanded to have a part of his father’s 
dominions during his father’s life. This being refused, he 
made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full 
of bitterness, and took refuge at the French king’s court. 
Within a day or two, his brothers Bichard and Geoffrey fol¬ 
lowed. Their mother tried to join them, escaping in man’s 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


89 


clothes; but she was seized by King Henry’s men, and 
immured in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen 
years. Every day, however, some grasping English nobleman, 
to whom the king’s protection of his people from their avarice 
and oppression had given offence, deserted him, and joined the 
princes. Every day he heard some fresh intelligence of the 
princes levying armies against him; of Prince Henry’s wearing 
a crown before his own ambassadors at the French court, and 
being called the Junior King of England; of all the princes 
swearing never to make peace with him, their father, without 
the consent and approval of the barons of France. But with 
his fortitude and energy unshaken, King Henry met the shock 
of these disasters with a resolved and cheerful face. He called 
upon all royal fathers who had sons to help him, for his cause 
was theirs; he hired, out of his riches, twenty thousand men 
to fight the false French king, who stirred his own blood 
against him; and he carried on the war with such vigour that 
Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. 

The conference was held beneath an old, wide-spreading, 
green elm-tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. 
The war recommenced. Prince Pichard began his fighting 
career by leading an army against his father; but his father 
beat him and his army back, and thousands of his men would 
have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked 
cause, had not the king received news of an invasion of Eng¬ 
land by the Scots, and promptly come home through a great 
storm to repress it. And whether he really began to 'fear that 
he suffered these troubles because a Becket had been murdered; 
or whether he wished to rise in favour of the Pope, who had 
now declared a Becket to be a saint; or in the favour of his 
own people, of whom many believed that even a Becket’s 
senseless tomb could work miracles, I don’t know; but the 
king no sooner landed in England than he went straight to 
Canterbury; and when he came within sight of the distant 
cathedral, he dismounted from his horse, took off his shoes, 
and walked with bare and bleeding feet to a Becket’s grave. 
There he lay down on the ground, lamenting, in the presence 
of many people; and by and by he went into the Chapter- 
House, and, removing his clothes from his back and shoulders, 
submitted himself to be beaten with knotted cords (not beaten 
very hard, I dare say, though) by eighty priests, one after 


90 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


another. It chanced that, on the very day when the king 
made this curious exhibition of himself, a complete victory was 
obtained over the Scots; which very much delighted the 
priests, who said that it was won because of his great example 
of repentance. For the priests in general had found out, since 
a Becket’s death, that they admired him of all things, though 
they hated him very cordially when he was alive. 

The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base 
conspiracy of the king’s undutiful sons and their foreign 
friends, took the opportunity of the king being thus employed 
at home to lay siege to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But 
the king, who was extraordinarily quick and active in all his 
movements, was at Rouen, too, before it was supposed possible 
that he could have left England; and there he so defeated the 
said Earl of Flanders that the conspirators proposed peace, 
and his bad sons, Henry and Geoffrey, submitted. Richard 
resisted for six weeks; but, being beaten out of castle after 
castle, he at last submitted, too, and his father forgave him. 

To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them 
breathing-time for new faithlessness. They were so false, 
disloyal, and dishonourable that they were no more to be trusted 
than common thieves. In the very next year, Prince Henry 
rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In eight years more, 
Prince Richard rebelled against his elder brother; and Prince 
Geoffrey infamously said that the brothers could never agree 
well together, unless they were united against their father. 
In the very next year after their reconciliation by the king, 
Prince Henry again rebelled against his father; and again sub¬ 
mitted, swearing to be true, and was again forgiven; and again 
rebelled with Geoffrey. 

But the end of this perfidious prince was come. He fell 
sick at a French town; and his conscience terribly reproaching 
him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the king his 
father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive 
him for the last time on his bed of death. The generous king, 
who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his children 
always, would have gone; but this prince had been so unnatu¬ 
ral that the noblemen about the king suspected treachery, and 
represented to him that he could not safely trust his life with 
such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore the king 
sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of forgiveness; 



AN OLD STREET IN ROUEN 





























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


91 


and when the prince had kissed it, with much grief and many 
tears, and had confessed to those around him how bad and 
wicked and undutiful a son he had been, he said to the atten¬ 
dant priests, “Oh, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out 
of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that I may die 
with prayers to God in a repentant manner!” And so he 
died, at twenty-seven years old. 

Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed at 
a tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses 
passing over him. So there only remained Prince Pichard, 
and Prince John, —who had grown to he a young man now, 
and had solemnly sworn to be faithful to his father. Pichard 
soon rebelled again, encouraged by his friend the French king, 
Philip the Second (son of Louis, who was dead), and soon 
submitted, and was again forgiven, swearing on the New Tes¬ 
tament never to rebel again; and, in another year or so, 
rebelled again, and, in the presence of his father, knelt down 
on his knee before the king of France, and did the French 
king homage, and declared that with his aid he would possess 
himself, by force, of all his father’s French dominions. 

And yet this Pichard called himself a soldier of our 
Saviour! And yet this Pichard wore the cross, which the 
kings of France and England had both taken, in the previous 
year, at a brotherly meeting underneath the old wide-spreading 
elm-tree on the plain, when they had sworn (like him) to 
devote themselves to a new Crusade, for the love and honour 
of the truth! 

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and 
almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy king, who had 
so long stood firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to his 
honour, supported him; and obliged the French king and 
Pichard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. Pich¬ 
ard wanted to be crowned king of England, and pretended that 
he wanted to he married (which he really did not) to the 
French king’s sister, his promised wife, whom King Henry 
detained in England. King Henry wanted, on the other hand, 
that the French king’s sister should be married to his favourite 
son, John, —the only one of his sons (he said) who had never 
rebelled against him. At last King Henry, deserted by his 
nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, con¬ 
sented to establish peace. 


92 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. 
When they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in writ¬ 
ing, as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the list 
of the deserters from their allegiance, whom he was required 
to pardon. The first name upon this list was John, his 
favourite son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 

“Oh, John! child of my heart!” exclaimed the king, in a 
great agony of mind; “oh, John! whom I have loved the 
best; oh, John! for whom I have contended through these 
many troubles, — have you betrayed me, too! ” And then he 
lay down with a heavy groan, and said, “Now let the world 
go as it will: I care for nothing more. ” 

After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the 
French town of Chinon, — a town he had been fond of during 
many years. But he was fond of no place now: it was too 
true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. 
He wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the 
children whom he left behind him, and expired. 

As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the 
court had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, 
so they now abandoned his descendant. The very body was 
stripped, in the plunder of the royal chamber; and it was not 
easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the abbey- 
church of Fontevraud. 

Bichard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have 
the heart of a lion. It would have been far better, I think, to 
have the heart of a man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause 
to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came — as he 
did — into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father’s 
uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, had been a black 
and perjured heart, in all its dealings with the deceased king, 
and more deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any 
wild beast’s in the forest. 

There is a pretty story told of this reign, called the story of 
Fair Bosamond. It relates how the king doted on Fair Bosa- 
mond, who was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how 
he had a beautiful bower built for her in a park at Woodstock; 
and how it was erected in a labyrinth, and could only be found 
by a clue of silk. How the bad Queen Eleanor, becoming 
jealous of Fair Bosamond, found out the secret of the clue, 
and one day appeared before her, with a dagger and a cup of 



MDO-LSCIOOAY 






































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


93 


poison, and left her to the choice between those deaths. How 
Fair Rosamond after shedding many piteous tears, and offering 
many useless prayers to the cruel queen, took the poison, and 
fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the uncon¬ 
scious birds sang gayly all around her. 

Now there was a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) 
the loveliest girl in all the world, and the king was certainly 
very fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly 
made jealous. But I am afraid — I say afraid, because I like 
the story so much — that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no 
silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid Fair Rosa¬ 
mond retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there peace¬ 
ably; her sister nuns hanging a silken drapery over her tomb, 
and often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance of the 
youth and beauty that had enchanted the king when he, too, 
was young, and when his life lay fair before him. 

It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry 
Plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey-church of Fontevraud, in 
the fifty-seventh year of his age, — never to be completed, — 
after governing England well for nearly thirty-five years. 


94 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER XIII 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LION-HEART 

In the year of our Lord 1189, Richard of the Lion Heart 
succeeded to the throne of King Henry the Second, whose 
paternal heart he had done so much to break. He had been, 
as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood; but the moment 
he became a king against whom others might rebel, he found 
out that rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this 
pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had 
befriended him against his father. He could scarcely have 
done anything that would have been a better instance of his 
real nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not to 
trust in lion-hearted princes. 

He likewise put his late father’s treasurer in chains, and 
locked him up in a dungeon, from which he was not set free 
until he had relinquished, not only all the crown treasure, but 
all his own money, too. So Richard certainly got the lion’s 
share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had 
a lion’s heart or not. 

He was crowned king of England, with great pomp, at 
Westminster; walking to the cathedral under a silken canopy 
stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great 
lord. On the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of 
the Jews took place, which seems to have given great delight 
to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. 
The king had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews (who 
were generally hated, though they were the most useful mer¬ 
chants in England) to appear at the ceremony; but as they 
had assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to 
show their respect for the new sovereign, some of them ven¬ 
tured down to Westminster Hall with their gifts, which were 
very readily accepted. It is supposed now that some noisy 
fellow in the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate Christian, 
set up a howl at this, and struck a Jew who was trying to get 


A CHILD’S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND 


95 



in at the hall-door with his present. A riot arose; the Jews 
who had got into the hall were driven forth; and some of the 
rabble cried out that the new king had commanded the unbe¬ 
lieving race to be put to death. Thereupon the crowd rushed 
through the narrow streets of the city, slaughtering all the 
Jews they met; and when they could find no more out of 
doors (on account of their having fled to their houses, and 
fastened themselves in), they ran madly about, breaking open 
all the houses where the Jews lived, rushing in and stabbing 
or spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people and 
children out of window into blazing fires they had lighted up 
below. This great cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and 
only three men were punished for it. Even they forfeited 
their lives, not for murdering and robbing the Jews, hut for 
burning the houses of some Christians. 

King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with 
one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome 
idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impa¬ 
tient to go on a crusade to the Holy Land, with a great army. 
As great armies could not be raised to go, even to the Holy 
Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the crown- 
domains, and even the high offices of state; recklessly appoint¬ 
ing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, not because 
they were fit to govern, but because they could pay high for 
the privilege. In this way, and by selling pardons at a dear 
rate, and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he scraped 
together a large treasure. He then appointed two bishops to 
take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powers 
and possessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship. 
John would rather have been made Regent of England; but 
he was a sly man, and friendly to the expedition, saying to 
himself, no doubt, “ The more fighting, the more chance of my 
brother being killed; and when he is killed, then I become 
King John! ” 

Before the newly levied army departed from England, the 
recruits and the general populace distinguished themselves by 
astonishing cruelties on the unfortunate Jews, whom in many 
large towns they murdered by hundreds in the most horrible 
manner. 

At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the castle, in 
the absence of its governor, after the wives and children of 


96 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

many of them had been slain before their eyes. Presently 
came the governor, and demanded admission. “How can we 
give it thee, 0 Governor! ” said the Jews upon the walls, 
“when, if we open the gate by so much as the width of a foot 
the roaring crowd behind thee will press in and kill us ? ” 

Upon this the unjust governor became angry, and told the 
people that he approved of their killing those Jews; and a 
mischievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself 
at the head of the assault, and they assaulted the castle for 
three days. 

Then said Jocen, the head Jew (who was a rabbi or priest), 
to the rest, “ Brethren, there is no hope for us with the Chris¬ 
tians who are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must 
soon break in. As we and our wives and children must die, 
either by Christian hands or by our own, let it be by our own. 
Let us destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure we have 
here, then fire the castle, and then perish. ” 

A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part 
complied. They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, 
and, when those were consumed, set the castle in flames. 
While the flames roared and crackled around them, and, shoot¬ 
ing up into the sky, turned it blood-red, Jocen cut the throat 
of his beloved wife and stabbed himself. All the others who 
had wives or children did the like dreadful deed. When the 
populace broke in, they found (except the trembling few, 
cowering in corners, whom they soon killed) only heaps of 
greasy cinders, with here and there something like part of the 
blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a 
human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator, 
as they were. 

After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, 
in no very good manner, with the holy crusade. It was 
undertaken jointly by the king of England and his old friend 
Philip of Erance. They commenced the business by reviewing 
their forces, to the number of a hundred thousand men. 
Afterwards they severally embarked their troops for Messina, 
in Sicily, which was appointed as the next place of meeting. ' 

King Richard’s sister had married the king of this place, 
but he was dead; and his uncle Tancred had usurped the 
crown, cast the royal widow into prison, and possessed himself 
of her estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister’s release, 



A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


97 


the restoration of her lands, and (according to the royal custom 
of the island) that she should have a golden chair, a golden 
table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver 
dishes. As he was too powerful to he successfully resisted, 
Tancred yielded to his demands; and then the French king 
grew jealous, and complained that the English king wanted to 
he absolute in the Island of Messina and everywhere else. 
Richard, however, cared little or nothing for this complaint; 
and in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of 
gold, promised his pretty little nephew Arthur, then a child 
of two years old, in marriage to Tancred’s daughter. We shall 
hear again of pretty little Arthur by and by. 

This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody’s brains being 
knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), King 
Kichard took his sister away, and also a fair lady named 
Berengaria, with whom he had fallen in love in France, and 
whom his mother, Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, you 
remember, but released by Richard on his coming to the 
throne), had brought out there to be his wife, and sailed with 
them for Cyprus. 

He soon had the pleasure of fighting the king of the Island 
of Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the 
English troops who were shipwrecked on the shore; and, easily 
conquering this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to 
be a companion to the lady Berengaria, and put the king him¬ 
self into silver fetters. He then sailed away again with his 
mother, sister, wife, and the captive princess; and soon arrived 
before the town of Acre, which the French king with his fleet 
was besieging from the sea. But the French king was in no 
triumphant condition; for his army had been thinned by the 
swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the plague; and Saladin, 
the brave sultan of the Turks, at the head of the numerous 
army, was at that time gallantly defending the place from the 
hills that rise above it. 

Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed 
in few points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in 
a most unholy manner; in debauching the people among whom 
they tarried, whether they were friends or foes; and in carry¬ 
ing disturbance and ruin into quiet places. The French king 
was jealous of the English king, and the English king was 
jealous of the French king, and the disorderly and violent 


98 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


soldiers of the two nations were jealous of one another; conse¬ 
quently the two kings could not at first agree, even upon a 
joint assault on Acre; but when they did make up their quar¬ 
rel for that purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the town, 
to give up the Christians the wood of the holy cross, to set at 
liberty all their Christian captives, and to pay two hundred 
thousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty 
days; but not being done, King Richard ordered some three 
thousand Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of 
his camp, and there, in full view of their own countrymen, to 
be butchered. 

The French king had no part in this crime; for he was by 
that time travelling homeward with the greater part of his 
men, being offended by the overbearing conduct of the English 
king, being anxious to look after his own dominions, and being 
ill, besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy 
country. King Richard carried on the war without him, and 
remained in the East, meeting with a variety of adventures, 
nearly a year and a half. Every night when his army was on 
the march, and came to a halt, the heralds cried out three 
times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause in which they 
were engaged, “Save the holy sepulchre!” and then all the 
soldiers knelt and said, “Amen!” Marching or encamping, 
the army had continually to strive with the hot air of the 
glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers animated and 
directed by the brave Saladin, or with both together. Sick¬ 
ness and death, battle and wounds, were always among them; 
but through every difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, 
and worked like a common labourer. Long and long after he 
was quiet in his grave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty 
English pounds of English steel in its mighty head, was a 
legend among the Saracens; and when all the Saracen and 
Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, if a Saracen 
horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider would 
exclaim, “What dost thou fear, fool? Dost thou think King 
Richard is behind it ? ” 

No one admired this king’s renown for bravery more than 
Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. 
When Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits 
from Damascus, and snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly 
messages and compliments were frequently exchanged between 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


99 


them; and then King Richard would mount his horse, and 
kill as many Saracens as he could, and Saladin would mount 
his, and kill as many Christians as he could. In this way 
King Richard fought to his heart’s content at Arsoof and at 
Jaffa; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at 
Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifica¬ 
tions there which the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his 
ally, the Duke of Austria, for being too proud to work at 
them. 

The army at last came within sight of the holy city of Jeru¬ 
salem, but being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling 
and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon 
a truce for three years, three months, three days, and three 
hours. Then the English Christians, protected by the noble 
Saladin from Saracen revenge, visited our Saviour’s tomb; and 
then King Richard embarked with a small force at Acre to 
return home. 

But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain 
to pass through Germany under an assumed name. Now there 
were many people in Germany who had served in the Holy 
Land under that proud Duke of Austria who had been kicked; 
and some of them, easily recognising a man so remarkable as 
King Richard, carried their intelligence to the kicked duke, 
who straightway took him prisoner at a little inn near Vienna. 

The duke’s master, the emperor of Germany, and the king 
of France, were equally delighted to have so troublesome a 
monarch in safe-keeping. Friendships which are founded on 
a partnership in doing wrong are never true; and the king of 
France was now quite as heartily King Richard’s foe as he had 
ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct to his father. 
He monstrously pretended that King Richard had designed to 
poison him in the East; he charged him with having murdered 
there a man whom he had in truth befriended; he bribed the 
emperor of Germany to keep him close prisoner; and finally, 
through the plotting of these two princes, Richard was brought 
before the German legislature, charged with the foregoing 
crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well 
that many of the assembly were moved to tears by his elo¬ 
quence and earnestness. It was decided that he should be 
treated, during the rest of his captivity, in a manner more 
becoming his dignity than he had been, and that he should be 


100 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

set free on the payment of a heavy ransom. This ransom the 
English people willingly raised. When Queen Eleanor took 
it over to Germany, it was at first evaded and refused. But 
she appealed to the honour of all the princes of the German 
Empire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that it was 
accepted, and the king released. Thereupon the king of 
Erance wrote to Prince John, “Take care of thyself: the Devil 
is unchained! ” 

Prince John had reason to fear his brother; for he had been 
a traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the 
French king, had vowed to the English nobles and people that 
his brother was dead, and had vainly tried to seize the crown. 
He was now in France, at a place called Evreux. Being the 
meanest and basest of men, he contrived a mean and base 
expedient for making himself acceptable to his brother. He 
invited the French officers of the garrison in that town to 
dinner, murdered them all, and then took the fortress. With 
this recommendation to the good-will of a lion-hearted mon¬ 
arch, he hastened to King Bichard, fell on his knees before 
him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. “I 
forgive him,” said the king; “and I hope I may forget the 
injury he has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my 
pardon . 99 

While King Bichard was in Sicily, there had been trouble 
in his dominions at home; one of the bishops whom he had 
left in charge thereof arresting the other, and making, in his 
pride and ambition, as great a show as if he were king himself. 
But the king hearing of it at Messina, and appointing a new 
regency, this Longchamp (for that was his name) had fled to 
Erance in a woman’s dress, and had there been encouraged 
and supported by the French king. With all these causes of 
offence against Philip in his mind, King Bichard had no 
sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic subjects with 
great display and splendour, and had no sooner been crowned 
afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the French 
king that the Devil was unchained, indeed, and made war 
against him with great fury. 

There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out 
of the discontents of the poor people, who complained that 
they were far more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found 
a spirited champion in William Eitz-Osbert, called Longbeard. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


101 


He became the leader of a secret society, comprising fifty 
thousand men: he was seized by surprise; he stabbed the citi¬ 
zen who first laid hands upon him, and retreated, bravely fight¬ 
ing, to a church, which he maintained four days, until he was 
dislodged by fire, and run through the body as he came out. 
He was not killed, though; for he was dragged, half dead, at 
the tail of a horse to Smithfield, and there hanged. Death 
was long a favourite remedy for silencing the people’s advo¬ 
cates; but as we go on with this history, I fancy we shall find 
them difficult to make an end of, for all that. 

The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still 
in progress when a certain lord named Yidomar, Viscount of 
Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient 
coins. As the king’s vassal, he sent the king half of it; but 
the king claimed the whole. The lord refused to yield the 
whole. The king besieged the lord in his castle, swore that 
he would take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its 
defenders on the battlements. 

There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to 
the effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by which 
King Richard would die. It may be that Bertrand de Gourdon, 
a young man who was one of the defenders of the castle, had 
often sung it, or heard it sung of a winter night, and remem¬ 
bered it when he saw, from his post upon the ramparts, the 
king, attended only by his chief officer, riding below the Avails, 
surveying the place. He drew an arrow to the head, took 
steady aim, said between his teeth, “Now, I pray God speed 
thee well, arrow! ” discharged it, and struck the king in the 
left shoulder. 

Although the wound Avas not at first considered dangerous, 
it Avas severe enough to cause the king to retire to his tent, 
and direct the assault to be made without him. The castle 
Avas taken; and every man of its defenders Avas hanged, as the 
king had sworn all should be, except Bertrand de Gourdon, 
avIio Avas reserved until the royal pleasure respecting him should 
be knoAvn. 

By that time unskilful treatment had made the Avound mor¬ 
tal, and the king knew that he was dying. He directed 
Bertrand to be brought into his tent. The young man was 
brought there heavily chained. King Richard looked at him 
steadily. He looked as steadily at the king. 



102 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


“Knave!” said King Richard, “what have I done to thee, 
that thou shouldst take my life 1 ” 

“What hast thou done to me 1 ?” replied the young man. 
“With thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my 
two brothers. Myself thou wouldst have' hanged. Let me 
die, now, by any torture that thou wilt. My comfort is that 
no torture can save thee. Thou, too, must die; and, through 
me, the world is quit of thee.” 

Again the king looked at the young man steadily. Again 
the young man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some remem¬ 
brance of his generous enemy Saladin, who was not a Chris¬ 
tian, came into the mind of the dying king. 

“Youth,” he said, “I forgive thee. Go unhurt!” 

Then, turning to the chief officer who had been riding in his 
company when he received the wound, King Kichard said: — 

“Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let 
him depart.” 

He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his 
weakened eves to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, 
and he died. His age was forty-two: he had reigned ten 
years. His last command was not obeyed; for the chief officer 
flayed Bertrand de Gourdon alive, and hanged him. 

There is an old tune yet known — a sorrowful air will some¬ 
times outlive many generations of strong men, and even last 
longer than battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head 
— by which this king is said to have been discovered in his 
captivity. Blondel, a favourite minstrel of King Richard, as 
the story relates, faithfully seeking his royal master, went 
singing it outside the gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses 
and prisons, until, at last, he heard it echoed from within a 
dungeon, and knew the voice, and cried out in ecstasy, “0 
Richard! 0 my king! ” You may believe it, if you like: it 
would be easy to believe worse things. Richard was himself 
a minstrel and poet. If he had not been a prince, too, he 
might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone 
out of the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to 
answer for. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


103 


CHAPTEE XIV 

ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND 

At two-and-thirty years of age, John became king of Eng¬ 
land. His pretty little nephew Arthur had the best claim to 
the throne; but John seized the treasure, and made fine 
promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at Westmin¬ 
ster within a few weeks after his brother Eichard’s death. I 
doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon 
the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if 
England had been searched from end to end to find him out. 

The French king, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right 
of John to his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. 
You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for 
the fatherless hoy: it merely suited his ambitious schemes to 
oppose the king of England. So John and the French king 
went to war about Arthur. 

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. 
He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains 
trampled out at the tournament; and, besides the misfortune 
of never having known a father’s guidance and protection, he 
had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (Corn 
stance by name), lately married to her third husband. She 
took Arthur, upon John’s accession, to the French king, who 
pretended to be very much his friend, and who made him a 
knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but who 
cared so little about him in reality that, finding it his interest 
to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without 
the least consideration for the poor little prince, and heartlessly 
sacrificed all his interests. 

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and 
in the course of that time his mother died. But the French 
king, then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John 
again, again made Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan 
boy to court. “You know your rights, Prince,” said the 


104 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


French king, “and you would like to be a king. Is it not 
so 1 !” “Truly,” said Prince Arthur, “I should greatly like 
to be a king!” — “Then,” said Philip, “you shall have two 
hundred gentlemen who are knights of mine, and with them 
you shall go to win back the provinces' belonging to you, of 
which your uncle, the usurping king of England, has taken 
possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against 
him in Normandy.” Poor Arthur was so flattered, and so 
grateful, that he signed a treaty with the crafty French king, 
agreeing to consider him his superior lord, and that the French 
king should keep for himself whatever he could take from 
King John. 

Now King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip 
was so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well 
have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so 
young, he was ardent and flushed with hope; and when the 
people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five 
hundred more knights and five thousand foot-soldiers, he 
believed his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had 
been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he 
might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly famous 
English Arthur of whom I told you early in this book, whom 
they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of 
an old king of their own. They had tales among them about 
a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had fore¬ 
told that their own king should be restored to them after 
hundreds of years; and they believed that the prophecy would 
be fulfilled in Arthur; that the time would come when he 
would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head, and 
when neither king of France nor king of England would have 
any power over them. When Arthur found himself riding in 
a glittering suit of armour, on a richly caparisoned horse, at 
the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he began to 
believe this, too, and to consider old Merlin a very superior 
prophet. 

He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and 
inexperienced 1 — that his little army was a mere nothing 
against the power of the king of England. The French king 
knew it; but the poor boy’s fate was little to him, so that the 
king of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King 
Philip went his way into Normandy; and Prince Arthur went 






FALAISE CASTLE 













I i ] 


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. 





























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A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 105 

his way towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both 
very well pleased. 

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because 
his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appear¬ 
ance in this history (and who had always been his mother’s 
enemy), was living there, and because his knights , said, 
“Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to 
bring the king your uncle to terms! ” But she was not to 
be easily taken. She was old enough by this time, — eighty; 
but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years 
and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur’s 
approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged 
her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his 
little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how 
matters stood, came up to the rescue with his army. So here 
was a strange family party: the boy-prince besieging his grand¬ 
mother, and his uncle besieging him! 

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer 
night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, 
surprised Prince Arthur’s force, took two hundred of his 
knights, and seized the prince himself in his bed. The 
knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open 
carts drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were 
most inhumanely treated, and where some of them were starved 
to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle of Falaise. 

One day while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully 
thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much 
trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep, 
dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was 
softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king, standing in the 
shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 

“Arthur,” said the king, with his wicked eyes more on the 
stone floor than on his nephew, “will you not trust to the 
gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving 
uncle ? ” 

“I will tell my loving uncle that,” replied the boy, “when 
he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of 
England, and then come to me and ask the question.” 

The king looked at him and went out. “Keep that boy 
close prisoner,” said he to the warden of the castle. 

Then the king took secret counsel with the worst of his 


106 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


nobles how the prince was to be got rid of. Some said, “Put 
out his eyes and keep him in prison, as Bobert of Normandy 
was kept.” Others said, “Have him stabbed.” Others, 
“Have him hanged.” Others, “Have him poisoned.” 

King John feeling that in any case, whatever was done 
• afterwards, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those 
handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly 
while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent 
certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. 
But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such 
piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg (or Burgh), 
the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was an 
honourable, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To 
his eternal honour he prevented the torture from being per¬ 
formed, and, at his own risk, sent the savages away. 

The chafed and disappointed king bethought himself of the 
stabbing suggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and 
his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. “I am a 
gentleman, and not an executioner,” said William de Bray, 
and left the presence with disdain. 

But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in 
those days. King John found one for his money, and sent 
him down to the castle of Falaise. “On what errand dost 
thou come? ” said Hubert to this fellow. “To despatch young 
Arthur,” he returned. “Go back to him who sent thee,” 
answered Hubert, “and say that I will do it.” 

King John, very well knowing that Hubert would never do 
it, but that he courageously sent this reply to save the prince 
or gain time, despatched messengers to convey the young 
prisoner to the castle of Bouen. 

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert, of 'whom he 
had never stood in greater need than then, carried away by 
night, and lodged in his new prison; where, through his 
grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river 
Seine rippling against the stone wall below. 

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of 
rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely 
suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by 
his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower. 
He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. When they came 
to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the 



A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


107 


river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch, 
and put it out. Then Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly 
drawn into a solitary boat. And in that boat he found his 
uncle and one other man. 

He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. 
Deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him, and sunk his body in 
the river with heavy stones. When the spring morning broke 
the tower-door was closed, the boat was gone, the river 
sparkled on its way, and never more was any trace of the poor 
boy beheld by mortal eyes. 

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England 
awakened a hatred of the king (already odious for his many 
vices, and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady 
while his own wife was living) that never slept again through his 
whole reign. In Brittany the indignation was intense. Arthur’s 
own sister Eleanor was in the power of John, and shut up in a 
convent at Bristol; but his half-sister Alice was in Brittany. 
The people chose her, and the murdered prince’s father-in-law, 
the last husband of Constance, to represent them, and carried 
their fiery complaints to King Philip. King Philip summoned 
King John (as the holder of territory in France) to come before 
him and defend himself. King John refusing to appear, King 
Philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty, and again made 
war. In a little time, by conquering the greater part of his 
French territory, King Philip deprived him of one-third of his 
dominions. And through all the fighting that took place, King 
John was always found either to be eating and drinking like a 
gluttonous fool when the danger was at a distance, or to be 
running away like a beaten cur when it was near. 

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions 
at this rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him 
or his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out 
of England, he had enemies enough. But he made another 
enemy of the Pope, which he did in this way. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, the junior monks of 
that place, wishing to get the start of the senior monks in 
the appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, 
secretly elected a certain Beginald, and sent him off to Borne 
to get the Pope’s approval. The senior monks and the king 
soon finding this out, and being very angry about it, the 
junior monks gave way; and all the monks together elected 


108 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the Bishop of Norwich, who was the king’s favourite. The 
Pope, hearing the whole story, declared that neither election 
would do for him, and that lie elected Stephen Langton. The 
monks submitting to the Pope, the king turned them all out 
bodily, and banished them as traitors.' The Pope sent three 
bishops to the king to threaten him with an interdict. The 
king told the bishops that, if any interdict were laid upon his 
kingdom, he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of 
all the monks he could lay hold of, and send them over to 
Rome in that undecorated state as a present for their master. 
The bishops, nevertheless, soon published the interdict, and 
fled. 

After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next 
step, which was excommunication. King John was declared 
excommunicated, with all the usual ceremonies. The king 
was so incensed at this, and was made so desperate by the 
disaffection of his barons and the hatred of his people, that it 
is said he even privately sent ambassadors to the Turks in 
Spain, offering to renounce his religion, and hold his kingdom 
of them, if they would help him. It is related that the 
ambassadors were admitted to the presence of the Turkish emir 
through long lines of Moorish guards, and that they found the 
emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large book, 
from which he never once looked up; that they gave him a 
letter from the king, containing his proposals, and were gravely 
dismissed; that presently the emir sent for one of them, and 
conjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of 
man the king of England truly was; that the ambassador, thus 
pressed, replied that the king of England was a false tyrant, 
against whom his own subjects would soon rise; and that this 
was quite enough for the emir. 

Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, 
King John spared no means of getting it. He set on foot 
another oppressing and torturing of the unhappy Jews (which 
was quite in his way), and invented a new punishment for one 
wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until such time as that Jew should 
produce a certain large sum of money, the king sentenced him 
to be imprisoned, and every day to have one tooth violently 
wrenched out of his head; beginning with the double teeth. 
For seven days, the oppressed man bore the daily pain and lost 
the daily tooth; but on the eighth he paid the money. With 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 109 

\ 

the treasure raised in such ways, the king made an expedition 
into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted. It 
was one of the very few places from which he did not run 
away; because no resistance was shown. He made another 
expedition into Wales, whence he did run away in the end, 
but not before he had got from the Welsh people, as hostages, 
twenty-seven young men of the best families; every one of 
whom he caused to be slain in the following year. 

To interdict and excommunication, the Pope now added his 
last sentence, deposition. He proclaimed John no longer 
king, absolved all his subjects from tlieir allegiance, and sent 
Stephen Langton and others to the king of France, to tell him 
that, if he would invade England, he should be forgiven all 
his sins; at least, should be forgiven them by the Pope, if 
that would do. 

As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to 
invade England, he collected a great army at Pouen, and a 
fleet of seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the 
English people, however bitterly they hated the king, were not 
a people to suffer invasion quietly. They flocked to Dover, 
where the English standard was, in such great numbers, to 
enroll themselves as defenders of their native land, that there 
were not provisions for them; and the king could only select 
and retain sixty thousand. But at this crisis the Pope, who 
had his own reasons for objecting to either King John or King 
Philip being too powerful, interfered. He intrusted a legate, 
whose name was Pandolf, with the easy task of frightening 
King John. He sent him to the English camp, from France, 
to terrify him with exaggerations of King Philip’s power, and 
his own weakness in the discontent of the English barons and 
people. Pandolf discharged his commission so well that King 
John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge Stephen 
Langton; to resign his kingdom “to God, St. Peter, and 
St. Paul, ” which meant the Pope; and to hold it ever after¬ 
wards by the Pope’s leave, on payment of an annual sum of 
money. To this shameful contract he publicly bound himself 
in the church of the Knights Templars at Dover; where he 
laid at the legate’s feet a part of the tribute, which the legate 
haughtily trampled upon. But they do say that this was 
merely a genteel flourish, and that he was afterwards seen to 
pick it up and pocket it. 














110 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


There was an unfortunate prophet, of the name of Peter, 
who had greatly increased King John’s terrors by predicting 
that he would be unknighted (which the king supposed to 
signify that he would die) before the Feast of the Ascension 
should be past. That was the day after this humiliation. 
When the next morning came, and the king, who had been 
trembling all night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered 
the prophet, and his son, too, to be dragged through the streets 
at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for having frightened 
him. 

As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King 
Philip’s great astonishment, took him under his protection, 
and informed King Philip that he found he could not give him 
leave to invade England. The angry Philip resolved to do it 
without his leave; but he gained nothing, and lost much; for 
the English, commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, went over 
in five hundred ships to the French coast, before the French 
fleet had sailed away from it, and utterly defeated the whole. 

The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after 
another, and empowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive 
King John into the favour of the Church again, and to ask 
him to dinner. The king, who hated Langton with all his 
might and main, — and with reason, too, for he was a great and 
good man, with whom such a king could have no sympathy, — 
pretended to cry and be very grateful. There was a little 
difficulty about settling how much the king should pay as a 
recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused them; 
but the end of it was that the superior clergy got a good deal, 
and the inferior clergy got little or nothing; which has also 
happened since King John’s time, I believe. 

When all these matters were arranged, the king in his 
triumph became more fierce and false and insolent to all around 
him than he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against 
King Philip gave him an opportunity of landing an army in 
France, with which he even took a town! but, on the French 
king’s gaining a great victory, he ran away, of course, and 
made a truce for five years. 

And now the time approached when he was to be still 
further humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, 
what a wretched creature he was. Of all men in the world. 

* 7 

Stephen Langton seemed raised up by Heaven to oppose and 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


111 


subdue him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the 
property of his own subjects, because their lords, the barons, 
would not serve him abroad, Stephen Langton fearlessly 
reproved and threatened him. When he swore to restore the 
laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry the First, 
Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him through 
all his evasions. When the barons met at the abbey of St. 
Edmund’s-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the king’s 
oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words 
to demand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their 
perjured master, and to swear, one by one, on the high altar, 
that they would have it, or would wage war against him to the 
death. When the king hid himself in London from the 
barons, and was at last obliged to receive them, they told him 
roundly they would not believe him unless Stephen Langton 
became a surety that he would keep his word. When he took 
the cross to invest himself with some interest, and belong to 
something that was received with favour, Stephen Langton 
was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope, and the 
Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new favourite, 
Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, and saw 
before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes 
of the English king. 

At Easter-time, the barons assembled at Stamford, in Lin¬ 
colnshire, in proud array, and marching near to Oxford, where 
the king was, delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton 
and two others a list of grievances. “And these,” they said, 
“he must redress, or we will do it for ourselves!” When 
Stephen Langton told the king as much, and read the list to 
him, he went half mad with rage. But that did him no more 
good than his afterwards trying to pacify the barons with lies. 
They called themselves and their followers, “ The army of God 
and the Holy Church.” Marching through the country, with 
the people thronging to them everywhere (except at Northamp¬ 
ton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they at 
last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither 
the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join 
them. Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, 
remained with the king; who, reduced to this strait, at last 
sent the Earl of Pembroke to the barons to say that he 
approved of everything, and would meet them, to sign their 


112 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


charter when they would. “Then,” said the barons, “let the 
day he the 15th of June, and the place Runny-Mead.” 

On Monday, the 15th of June, 1214, the king came from 
Windsor Castle, and the barons came from the town of Staines, 
and they met on Runny-Mead, which is still a pleasant meadow 
by the Thames, where rushes grow in the clear water of the 
winding river, and its banks are green with grass and trees. 
On the side of the barons came the general of their army, 
Robert Eitz-Walter, and a great concourse of the nobility of 
England. With the king came, in all, some four-and-twenty 
persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were 
merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that 
great company, the king signed Magna Charta, —the Great 
Charter of England, — by which he pledged himself to main¬ 
tain the Church in its rights; to relieve the barons of oppres¬ 
sive obligations as vassals of the crown (of which the barons, 
in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve their vassals, the 
people); to respect the liberties of London and all other cities 
and boroughs; to protect foreign merchants who came to Eng¬ 
land; to imprison no man without a fair trial; and to sell, 
delay, or deny justice to none. As the barons knew his 
falsehood well, they further required, as their securities, that 
he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign troops; that 
for two months they should hold possession of the city of 
London, and Stephen Langton of the tower; and that five-and- 
twenty of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful 
committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make 
war upon him if he broke it. 

All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter 
with a smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would 
have done so, as he departed from the splendid assembly. 
When he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a mad¬ 
man in his helpless fury. And he broke the charter immedi¬ 
ately afterwards. 

He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for 
help, and plotted to take London by surprise, while the barons 
should he holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they 
had agreed to hold there as a celebration of the charter. The 
barons, however, found him out, and put it off. Then, when 
the barons desired to see him, and tax him with his treachery, 
he made numbers of appointments with them and kept none, 





RUNNY-MKAD 












A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


113 


and shifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking 
and skulking about. At last he appeared at Dover, to join 
his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his pay; and 
with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was 
occupied by knights and soldiers of the barons. He would 
have hanged them, every one; but the leader of the foreign 
soldiers, fearful of what the English people might afterwards 
do to him, interfered to save the knights; therefore the king 
was fain to satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the 
common men. Then he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one 
portion of his army, to ravage the eastern part of his own 
dominions, while he carried fire and slaughter into the north¬ 
ern part; torturing, plundering, killing, and inflicting every 
possible cruelty upon the people; and every morning setting 
a worthy example to his men by setting fire, with his own 
monster-hands, to the house where he had slept last night. 
Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid of his pre¬ 
cious friend, laid the kingdom under an interdict again, because 
the people took part with the barons. It did not much mat¬ 
ter; for the people had grown so used to it now that they had 
begun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them, — 
perhaps to Stephen Langton, too, — that they could keep their 
churches open, and ring their bells, without the Pope’s permis¬ 
sion as well as with it. So they tried the experiment, and 
found that it succeeded perfectly. 

It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness 
of cruelty, or longer to hold any terms Avith such a forsworn 
outlaw of a king, the barons sent to Eouis, son of the French 
monarch, to offer him the English crown. Caring as little for 
the Pope’s excommunication of him if he accepted the offer 
as it is possible his father may have cared for the Pope’s for¬ 
giveness of his sins, he landed at Sandwich (Iving John imme¬ 
diately running away from Dover, where he happened to be), 
and went on to London. The Scottish king, with whom many 
of the Northern English lords had taken refuge, numbers of 
the foreign soldiers, numbers of the barons, and numbers of 
the people went over to him every day; Ring John the while 
continually running away in all directions. The career of 
Louis was checked, however, by the suspicions of the barons, 
founded on the dying declaration of a French lord, that when 
the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as 


114 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own nobles. 
Bather than suffer this, some of the barons hesitated; others 
even went over to King John. 

It seemed to be the turning-point of King John’s fortunes; 
for in his savage and murderous course he had now taken some 
towns and met with some successes. But, happily for Eng¬ 
land and humanity, his death was near. Crossing a danger¬ 
ous quicksand, called the wash, not very far from Wisbeach, 
the tide came up, and nearly drowned his army. He and his 
soldiers escaped; but, looking back from the shore when he 
was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep down in torrents, 
overturn the wagons, horses, and men that carried his treasure, 
and ingulf them in a raging whirlpool from which nothing 
could be delivered. 

Cursing and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on 
to Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quanti¬ 
ties of pears and peaches and new cider, — some say poison, 
too, but there is very little reason to suppose so, — of which 
he ate and drank in an immoderate and beastly way. All 
night he lay ill of a burning fever, and haunted with horrible 
fears. Next day they put him in a horse-litter, and carried 
him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed another night of pain 
and horror. Next day they carried him, with greater difficulty 
than on the day before, to the castle of Newark upon Trent; 
and there, on the 18th of October, in the forty-ninth year of 
his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was an end of 
this miserable brute. 


i 




A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


115 


CHAPTER XV 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED HENRY THE THIRD 

OF WINCHESTER 

If any of the English barons remembered the murdered 
Arthur’s sister, Eleanor, the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in 
her convent at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, 
or maintained her right to the crown. The dead usurper’s 
eldest hoy, Henry by name, was taken by the Earl of Pem¬ 
broke, the marshal of England, to the city of Gloucester, and 
there crowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. 
As the crown itself had been lost with the king’s treasure, in 
the raging water, and, as there was no time to make another, 
they put a circle of plain gold upon his head instead. “We 
have been the enemies of this child’s father,” said Lord Pem¬ 
broke, a good and true gentleman, to the few lords who were 
present, “and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is 
innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protec¬ 
tion. ” Those lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, 
remembering their own young children; and they bowed their 
heads, and said, “Long live King Henry the Third!” 

Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, 
and made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as 
the king was too young to reign alone. The next thing to 
he done was to get rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win 
over those English barons who were still ranged under his 
banner. He was strong in many parts of England, and in 
London itself; and he held, among other places, a certain 
castle called the castle of Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. To 
this fortress, after some skirmishing and truce-making, Lord 
Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army of six hun¬ 
dred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. Lord 
Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired 
with all his nup. The army of the French prince, which had 
marched there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire 


116 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and plunder, and came, in a boastful, swaggering manner, to 
Lincoln. The town submitted; but the castle in the town, 
held by a brave widow lady, named Nichola de Camville 
(whose property it was), made such a sturdy resistance that the 
French count in command of the army of the French prince 
found it necessary to besiege this castle. While he was thus 
engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke, with 
four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with cross¬ 
bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching 
towards him. “What care IV’ said the French count. “The 
Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army 
in a walled town! ” But the Englishman did it for all that, 
and did it, not so madly but so wisely that he decoyed the 
great army into the narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lin¬ 
coln, where its horse-soldiers could not ride in any strong 
body; and there he made such havoc with them that the 
whole force surrendered themselves prisoners, except the count, 
who said that he would never yield to any English traitor 
alive, and accordingly got killed. The end of this victory, 
which the English called, for a joke, the Fair of Lincoln, was 
the usual one in those times, — the common men were slain 
without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom 
and went home. 

The wife of Louis, the fair Blanche of Castile, dutifully 
equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from 
France to her husband’s aid. An English fleet of forty ships, 
some good and some bad, gallantly met them near the mouth 
of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in one fight. This 
great loss put an end to the French prince’s hopes. A treaty 
was made at Lambeth, in virtue of which the English barons 
who had remained attached to his cause returned to their alle¬ 
giance; and it was engaged on both sides that the prince and 
all his troops should retire peacefully to France. It was time 
to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged to 
borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his expenses 
home. 

Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the 
country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances 
that had arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. 
He caused Magna Charta to be still more improved, and so 
amended the Forest Laws that a peasant was no longer put to 



ST. PAUL’S FROM WATERLOO BRIDGE 




















A CHILD’S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 


117 


death for killing n stag in a royal forest, but was only impris¬ 
oned. It would have been well for England if it could have 
had so good a protector many years longer; hut that was not 
to he. Within three years after the young king’s coronation, 
Lord Pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this day, 
in the old Temple Church in London. 

The protectorship was now divided. Peter de Roches, whom 
King John had made Bishop of Winchester, was intrusted with 
the care of the person of the young sovereign; and the exercise 
of the royal authority was confided to Earl Hubert de Burgh. 
These two personages had from the first no liking for each 
other, and soon became enemies. When the young king was 
declared of age, Peter de Roches, finding that Hubert in¬ 
creased in power and favour, retired discontentedly, and went 
abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards Hubert had full sway 
alone. 

But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a king. 
This king, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to 
his father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The 
best that can he said of him is that he was not cruel. De 
Roches coming home again, after ten years, and being a nov¬ 
elty, the king began to favour him, and to look coldly on 
Hubert. Wanting money besides, and having made Hubert 
rich, he began to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to 
believe, or pretended to believe, that Hubert had misappro¬ 
priated some of the royal treasure; and ordered him to furnish 
an account of all he had done in his administration. Besides 
which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert that he 
had made himself the king’s favourite by magic. Hubert, very 
well knowing that he could never defend himself against such 
nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his 
ruin, instead of answering the charges, fled to Merton Abbey. 
Then the king, in a violent passion, sent for the mayor of 
London, and said to the mayor, “Take twenty thousand citi¬ 
zens, and drag me Hubert de Burgh out of that abbey, and 
bring him here.” The mayor posted off to do it; but the 
Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of Hubert’s) warning 
the king that an abbey was a sacred place, and that if he 
committed any violence there he must answer for it to the 
Church, the king changed his mind, and called the mayor 
back, and declared that Hubert should have four months to 


118 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


prepare his defence, and should be safe and free during that 
time. 

Hubert, who relied upon the king’s word, though I think 
he was old enough to have known better, came out of Merton 
Abbey upon these conditions, and journeyed away to see his 
wife, a Scottish princess, who was then at St. Edmund’s-Bury. 

Almost as soon as he had departed from the sanctuary, his 
enemies persuaded the weak king to send out one Sir Godfrey 
de Crancumb, who commanded three hundred vagabonds called 
the Black Band, with orders to seize him. They came up 
with him at a little town in Essex, called Brentwood, when he 
was in bed. He leaped out of bed, got out of the house, fled 
to the church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand upon the 
cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band, caring neither for 
church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the church-door, 
with their drawn swords flashing round his head, and sent for a 
smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. When the smith (I 
wish I knew his name) was brought, all dark and swarthy with 
the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had 
made, and the Black Band, falling aside to show him the 
prisoner, cried with a loud uproar, “ Make the fetters heavy, 
make them strong ! ” the smith dropped upon his knee, — hut 
not to the Black Band, — and said, “ This is the brave Earl 
Hubert de Burgh, who fought at Dover Castle, and destroyed 
the French fleet, and has done his country much good service. 
You may kill me if you like, but I will never make a chain for 
Earl Hubert de Burgh ! ” 

The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed 
at this. They knocked the smith about from one to another, 
and swore at him, and tied the earl on horseback, undressed as 
he was, and carried him off to the Tower of London. The 
bishops, however, were so indignant at the violation of the 
sanctuary of the Church that the frightened king soon ordered 
the Black Band to take him back again ; at the same time com¬ 
manding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out of 
Brentwood Church. Well, the sheriff dug a deep trench all 
round the church, and erected a high fence, and watched the 
church night and day; the Black Band and their captain 
watched it, too, like three hundred and one black wolves. For 
thirty-nine days Hubert de Burgh remained within. At 
length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


119 


for him ; and he gave himself up to the Black Band, who car¬ 
ried him off, for the second time, to the Tower. When his 
trial came on, he refused to plead; hut at last it was arranged 
that he should give up all the royal lands which had been 
bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the Castle of De¬ 
vizes, in what was called “ free prison,” in charge of four 
knights appointed by four lords. There he remained almost a 
year, until, learning that a follower of his old enemy the bishop 
was made keeper of the castle, and fearing that he might be 
killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one dark night, 
dropped from the top of the high castle-wall into the moat, 
and, coming safely to the ground, took refuge in another church. 
From this place he was delivered by a party of horse despatched 
to his help by some nobles, who were by this time in revolt 
against the king, and assembled in Wales. He was finally 
pardoned, and restored to his estate; hut he lived privately, and 
never more aspired to a high post in the realm, or to a high 
place in the king’s favour. And thus end — more happily than 
the stories of many favourites of kings — the adventures of Earl 
Hubert de Burgh. 

The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebel¬ 
lion by the overhearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, 
who, finding that the king secretly hated the Great Charter 
which had been forced from his father, did his utmost to con¬ 
firm him in that dislike, and in the preference he showed to 
foreigners over the English. Of this, and of his even publicly 
declaring that the barons of England were inferior to those of 
France, the English lords complained with such bitterness that 
the king, finding them well supported by the clergy, became 
frightened for his throne, and sent away the bishop and all his 
foreign associates. On his marriage, however, with Eleanor, a 
French lady, the daughter of the Count of Provence, he openly 
favoured the foreigners again ; and so many of his wife’s rela¬ 
tions came over, and made such an immense family party at 
court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so much 
money, and were so high with the English whose money they 
pocketed, that the bolder English barons murmured openly 
about a clause there was in the Great Charter which provided 
for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. But the for¬ 
eigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, “ What are your 
English laws to us ? ” 


120 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded by 
Prince Louis, who had also died after a short reign of three 
years, and had been succeeded by his son of the same name, — 
so moderate and just a man that he was not the least in the 
world like a king, as kings went. Isabella, King Henry’s 
mother, wished very much (for a certain spite she had) that 
England should make war against this king; and, as King 
Henry was a mere puppet in anybody’s hands who knew how 
to manage his feebleness, she easily carried her point with him. 
But the Parliament were determined to give him no money for 
such a war. So, to defy the Parliament, he packed up thirty 
large casks of silver, — I don’t know how he got so much ; I 
dare say he screwed it out of the miserable Jews,—and put 
them aboard ship, and went away himself to carry war into 
France, accompanied by his mother and his brother Bichard, 
Earl of Cornwall, who was rich and clever. But he only got 
well beaten, and came home. 

The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored by 
this. They reproached the king with wasting the public 
money to make greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern witli 
him, and so determined not to let him have more of it to waste 
if they could help it, that he was at his wit’s end for some, and 
tried so shamelessly to get all he could from his subjects, by 
excuses or by force, that the people used to say the king was 
the sturdiest beggar in England. He took the cross, thinking 
to get some money by that means ; but as it was very well 
known that he never meant to go on a crusade, he got none. 
In all this contention, the Londoners were particularly keen 
against the king, and the king hated them warmly in return. 
Hating or loving, however, made no difference ; he continued 
in the same condition for nine or ten years, when, at last, the 
barons said that, if he would solemnly confirm their liberties 
afresh, the Parliament would vote him a large sum. 

As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in 
Westminster Hall, one pleasant day in May, when all the 
clergy, dressed in their robes, and holding every one of them a 
burning candle in his hand, stood up (the barons being also 
there) while the Archbishop of Canterbury read the sentence of 
excommunication against any man, and all men, who should 
henceforth, in any way, infringe the Great Charter of the 
kingdom. When he had done, they all put out their burning 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


.121 


candles with a curse upon the soul of any one. and every one, 
who should merit that sentence. The king concluded with an 
oath to keep the charter, u As I am a man, as I am a Christian, 
as I am a knight, as I am a king ! ” 

It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them; and the 
king did both, as his father had done before him. He took 
to his old courses again when he was supplied with money, and 
soon cured of their weakness the few who had ever really 
trusted him. When his money was gone, and he was once 
more borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness worthy 
of his nature, he got into a difficulty with the Pope respecting 
the crown of Sicily, which the Pope said he had a right to give 
away, and which he offered to King Henry for his second son, 
Prince Edmund. But if you or I give away what we have 
not got, and what belongs to somebody else, it is likely that the 
person to whom we give it will have some trouble in taking it. 
It was exactly so in this case. It was necessary to conquer the 
Sicilian crown before it could be put upon young Edmund’s 
head. It could not he conquered without money. The Pope 
ordered the clergy to raise money. The clergy, however, were 
not so obedient to him as usual, — they had been disputing 
with him for some time about his unjust preference of Italian 
priests in England ; and they had begun to doubt whether the 
king’s chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in 
seven hundred churches, could possibly he, even by the Pope’s 
favour, in seven hundred places at once. “ The Pope and the* 
king together,” said the Bishop of London, “ may take the 
mitre off my head; hut if they do, they will find that I 
shall put on a soldier’s helmet. I pay nothing.” The Bishop 
of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would 
pay nothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more 
helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away, without 
doing any good to the king, or bringing the Sicilian crown an 
inch nearer to Prince Edmund’s head. The end of the business 
was, that the Pope gave the crown to the brother of the king 
of France (who conquered it for himself), and sent the king 
of England in a hill of one hundred thousand pounds for the 
expenses of not having won it. 

The king was now so much distressed that we might almost 
pity him, if it were possible to pity a king so shabby and 
ridiculous. His clever brother Richard had bought the title of 


122 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the king of the Romans from the German people, and was no 
longer near him, to help him with advice. The clergy, resist¬ 
ing the very Pope, were in alliance with the barons. The 
barons were headed by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, 
married to King Henry’s sister, and, though a foreigner himself, 
the most popular man in England against the foreign favourites. 
When the king next met his Parliament, the barons, led by 
this earl, came before him, armed from head to foot, and cased 
in armour. When the Parliament again assembled, in a month’s 
time, at Oxford, this earl was at their head; and the king was 
obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee of 
Government, consisting of twenty-four members, twelve chosen 
by the barons, and twelve chosen by himself. 

But at a good time for him, his brother Richard came hack. 
Richard’s first act (the barons would not admit him into Eng¬ 
land on other terms) was to swear to he faithful to the Com¬ 
mittee of Government, which he immediately began to oppose 
with all his might. Then the barons began to quarrel among 
themselves, especially the proud Earl of Gloucester with the 
Earl of Leicester, who went abroad in disgust. Then the peo¬ 
ple began to he dissatisfied with the barons, because they did 
not do enough for them. The king’s chances seemed so good 
again at length that he took heart enough, or caught it from 
his brother, to tell the Committee of Government that he 
abolished them, — as to his oath, never mind that, the Pope said ! 
— and to seize all the monev in the mint, and to shut himself 
up in the Tower of London. Here he was joined by his eldest 
son, Prince Edward; and from the Tower he made public a 
letter of the Pope’s to the world in general, informing all men 
that he had been an excellent and just king for five-and-forty 
years. 

As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody 
cared much for this document. It so chanced that the proud 
Earl of Gloucester, dying, was succeeded by his son ; and that 
his son, instead of being the enemy of the Earl of Leicester, 
was (for the time) his friend. It fell out, therefore, that these 
two earls joined their forces, took several of the royal castles in 
the country, and advanced as hard as they could on London. 
The London people, always opposed to the king, declared for 
them with great joy. The king himself remained shut up, not 
at all gloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward made the best 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


123 


of his way to Windsor Castle. His mother the queen attempted 
to follow him by water; hut the people seeing her barge rowing 
up the river, and hating her with all their hearts, ran to London 
Bridge, got together a quantity of stones and mud, and pelted 
the barge as it came through, crying furiously, “ Drown the 
witch! Drown her ! ” They were so near doing it that the 
mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her up 
in St. Paul’s until the danger was past. 

It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a 
great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king through his 
disputes with the barons, and to follow the barons through their 
disputes with one another; so I will make short work of it for 
both of us, and only relate the chief events which arose out of 
these quarrels. The good king of France was asked to decide 
between them. He gave it as his opinion that the king must 
maintain the Great Charter, and that the barons must give up 
the Committee of Government, and all the rest that had been 
done by the Parliament at Oxford, which the royalists, or king’s 
party, scornfully called the Mad Parliament. The barons de¬ 
clared that these were not fair terms, and they would not accept 
them. Then they caused the great bell of St. Paul’s to be 
tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the London people, who 
armed themselves at the dismal sound, and formed quite an 
army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that instead 
of falling upon the king’s party, with whom their quarrel was, 
they fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hun¬ 
dred of them. They pretended that some of these Jews were 
on the king’s side, and that they kept hidden in their houses, 
for the destruction of the people, a certain terrible composition 
called Greek Fire, which could not be put out with water, but 
only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep in 
their houses was money ; and this their cruel enemies wanted, 
and this their cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers. 

The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these 
Londoners and other forces, and followed the king to Lewes in 
Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. Before giving 
the king’s forces battle here, the earl addressed his soldiers, and 
said that King Henry the Third had broken so many oaths that 
he had become the enemy of God, and therefore they would 
wear white crosses on their breasts, as if they were arrayed, not 
against a fellow-Christian, but against a Turk. White-crossed, 


124 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


accordingly, they rushed into the fight. They would have lost 
the day, — the king having on his side all the foreigners in 
England; and from Scotland, John Cornyn, John Baliol, and 
Robert Bruce, with all their men, — but for the impatience of 
Prince Edward, who, in his hot desire to have vengeance on the 
people of London, threw the whole of his father’s army into 
confusion. He was taken prisoner; so was the king; so was 
the king’s brother, the king of the Romans; and five thousand 
Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass. 

For this success the Pope excommunicated the Earl of Leices¬ 
ter, which neither the earl nor the people cared at all about. 
The people loved him and supported him; and he became the 
real king, having all the power of the government in his own 
hands, though he was outwardly respectful to King Henry the 
Third, whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poor 
old limp court-card. He summoned a parliament (in the year 
1265), which was the first parliament in England that the 
people had any real share in electing; and he grew more and 
more in favour with the people every day, and they stood by him 
in whatever he did. 

Many of the other barons, and particularly the Earl of 
Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his father, 
grew jealous of this powerful and popular earl, who was proud 
too, and began to conspire against him. Since the battle of 
Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as a hostage, and, though 
he was otherwise treated like a prince, had never been allowed 
to go without attendants appointed by the Earl of Leicester, 
who watched him. The conspiring lords found means to pro¬ 
pose to him, in secret, that they should assist him to escape, 
and should make him their leader; to which he very heartily 
consented. 

So on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants 
after dinner (being then at Hereford), “I should like to ride on 
horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the country.” 
As they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to have a canter 
in the sunshine, they all rode out of the town together in a gay 
little troop. When they came to a fine level piece of turf, the 
prince fell to comparing their horses one with another, and offer¬ 
ing bets that one was faster than another; and the attendants, 
suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their horses 
were quite tired. The prince rode no matches himself, but 



SUSSEX DOWNS NEAR LEWES 






















A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


125 


looked on from his saddle, and staked his money. Thus they 
passed the whole merry afternoon. Now the sun was setting, 
and they were all going slowly up a hill, the prince’s horse very 
fresh and all the other horses very weary, when a strange rider 
mounted on a grey steed appeared at the top of the hill, and 
waved his hat. “ What does the fellow mean ? ” said the 
attendants, one to another. The prince answered on the instant 
by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed,, 
joining the man, riding into the midst of a little crowd of horse¬ 
men, who were then seen waiting under some trees, and who 
closed around him ; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, leav¬ 
ing the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who sat 
looking at one another, while their horses drooped their ears 
and panted. 

The prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow The 
Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old 
king, was at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester’s sons, 
Simon de Montfort, with another part of the army, was in 
Sussex. To prevent these two parts from uniting was the 
prince’s first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort by night, 
defeated him, seized his/banners and treasure, and forced him 
into Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, which belonged to his 
family. 

His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the mean while, not 
knowing what had happened, marched out of Hereford, with his 
part of the army and the king to meet him. He came on a 
bright morning in August to Evesham, which is watered by the 
pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiously across the 
prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advan¬ 
cing, and his face brightened with joy. But it clouded darkly 
when he presently perceived that the banners were captured 
and in the enemy’s hands, and he said, “ It is over. The Lord 
have mercy on our souls ! for our bodies are Prince Edward’s.” 

He fought like a true knight, nevertheless. When his horse 
was killed under him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce battle, 
and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old king, stuck up 
in a suit of armour on a big war-horse, which did n’t mind him 
at all, and which carried him into all sorts of places where he 
did n’t want to go, got into everybody’s way, and very nearly 
got knocked on the head by one of his son’s men. But he 
managed to pipe out, “ I am Harry of Winchester ! ” and the 


126 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took him out of 
peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought bravely, until his best 
son, Henry, was killed, and the bodies of his best friends 
choked his path; and then he fell, still fighting, sword in hand. 
They mangled his body, and sent it as a present to a noble lady, 
— but a very unpleasant lady, I should think,—who was the 
wife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle his memory 
in the minds of the faithful people, though. Many years after¬ 
wards they loved him more than ever, and regarded him as a 
saint, and always spoke of him as “ Sir Simon the Righteous.” 

And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had 
fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the 
king in the very hour of victory. Henry found himself obliged 
to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated it, and to 
make laws similar to the laws of the great Earl of Leicester, 
and to be moderate and forgiving towards the people at last, — 
even towards the people of London, who had so long opposed 
him. There were more risings before all this was done; but 
they were set at rest by these means, and Prince Edward did 
his best in all things to restore peace. One Sir Adam de 
Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms; but the 
prince vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and nobly 
gave him his life and became his friend, instead of slaying him. 
Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwards remained 
devoted to his generous conqueror. 

When the troubles of the kingdom were thus calmed, Prince 
Edward and his cousin Henry took the cross, and went away to 
the Holy Land, with many English lords and knights. Four 
years afterwards the king of the Romans died; and next 
year (1272), his brother, the weak king of England, died. He 
was sixty-eight years old then, and had reigned fifty-six years. 
He was as much of a king in death as he had ever been in life. 
He was the mere pale shadow of a king at all times. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


127 


CHAPTER XVI 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS 

It was now the year of our Lord 1272 ; and Prince Edward, 
the heir to the throne, being away in the Holy Land, knew 
nothing of his father’s death. The barons, however, proclaimed 
him king, immediately after the royal funeral ; and the people 
very willingly consented, since most men knew too well by this 
time what the horrors of a contest for the crown were. So 
King Edward the First, called, in a not very complimentary 
manner, Longshanks, because of the slenderness of his legs, was 
peacefully accepted by the English nation. 

His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they 
were ; for they had to support him through many difficulties on 
the fiery sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, 
died, deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess made 
light of it ; and he said, u I will go on, if I go on with no other 
follower than my groom ! ” 

A prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. He 
stormed Nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, I am 
sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent 
people; and then he went to Acre, where he got a truce of ten 
years from the sultan. He had very nearly lost his life in 
Acre, through the treachery of a Saracen noble, called the Emir 
of Jaffa, who, making the pretence that he had some idea of 
turning Christian, and wanted to know all about that religion, 
sent a trusty messenger to Edward, very often, — with a dagger 
in his sleeve. At last, one Friday in Whitsun-week, when it 
was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay beneath the blazing 
sun, burnt up like a great overdone biscuit, and Edward was 
lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only a loose robe, the 
messenger, with his chocolate-coloured face and his bright dark 
eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, and 
kneeled down like a tame tiger. But the moment Edward 
stretched out his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring 


128 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


at his heart. He was quick, but Edward was quick, too. He 
seized the traitor by his chocolate throat, threw him to the 
ground, and slew him with the very dagger he had drawn. The 
weapon had struck Edward in the arm, and, although the wound 
itself was slight, it threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the 
dagger had been smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a 
better surgeon than was often to be found in those times, and 
to some wholesome herbs, and, above all, to his faithful wife, 
Eleanor, who devotedly nursed him, and is said by some to have 
sucked the poison from the wound with her own red lips (which 
I am very willing to believe), Edward soon recovered and was 
sound again. 

As the king his father had sent entreaties to him to return 
home, he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, 
when he met messengers who brought him intelligence of the 
king’s death. Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no 
haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to the 
Pope, and went in state through various Italian towns, where 
he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty champion of the 
cross from the Holy Land, and where he received presents of 
purple mantles and prancing horses, and went along in great 
triumph. The shouting people little knew that he was the last 
English monarch who would ever embark in a crusade, or that 
within twenty years every conquest which the Christians had 
made in the Holy Land, at the cost of so much blood, would be 
won back by the Turks. But all this came to pass. 

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in 
France, called Chalons. When the king was coming towards 
the place on his way to England, a wily French lord, called 
the Count of Clmlons, sent him a polite challenge to come with 
his knights and hold a fair tournament with the count and his 
knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. It was 
represented to the king that the Count of Clmlons was not to be 
trusted, and that, instead of a holiday fight for mere show and 
in good-humour, he secretly meant a real battle, in which the 
English should be defeated by superior force. 

The king, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed 
place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When 
the count came with two thousand, and attacked the English in 
earnest, the English rushed at them with such valour that the 
count’s men and the count’s horses soon began to be tumbled 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 129- 

down all over the field. The count himself seized the king 
round the neck ; but the king tumbled him out of his saddle in 
return for the compliment, and, jumping from his own horse 
and standing over him, beat away at his iron armour like a 
blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even when the count 
owned himself defeated, and offered his sword, the king would 
not do him the honour to take it, but made him yield it up to 
a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in this 
fight that it was afterwards called the little battle of Chfilons. 

The English were very well disposed to be proud of their 
king after these adventures ; so when he landed at Dover in 
the year 1274 (being then thirty-six years old), and went on to 
Westminster, where he and his good queen were crowned with 
great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the 
coronation feast there were provided, among other eatables, four 
hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, 
eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty 
thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in the street 
flowed with red and white wine instead of water; the rich citi¬ 
zens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colours out of their 
windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold 
and silver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. 
In short, there was such eating and drinking, such music and 
capering, such a ringing of bells and tossing of caps, such a shout¬ 
ing and singing, and revelling, as the narrow, overhanging streets 
of old London City had not witnessed for many a long day. All 
the people were merry, — except the poor Jews, who, trembling 
within their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to 
foresee that they would have to find the money for this joviality 
sooner or later. 

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jew T s for the present, I am 
sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmercifully pil¬ 
laged. They were hanged in great numbers, on accusations of 
having clipped the king’s coin, — which all kinds of people had 
done. They were heavily taxed; they were disgracefully badged; 
they were, on one day, thirteen years after the coronation, 
taken up with their wives and children, and thrown into beastly 
prisons, until they purchased their release by paying to the 
king twelve thousand pounds. Finally, every kind of property 
belonging to them was seized by the king, except so little as 
would defray the charge of their taking themselves away into 


130 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


foreign countries. Many years elapsed before the hope of gain 
induced any of their race to return to England, where they had 
been treated so heartlessly and had suffered so much. 

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Chris¬ 
tians as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But 
he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under whom the 
country much improved. He had no love for the Great Charter, 
— few kings had, through many, many years, — but he had 
high qualities. The first bold object which he conceived when 
he came home was to unite under one sovereign England, Scot¬ 
land, and Wales; the two last of which countries had each a 
little king of its own about whom the people were always quar¬ 
relling and fighting, and making a prodigious disturbance, — a 
great deal more than he was worth. In the course of King 
Edward’s reign, he was engaged, besides, in a war with France. 
To make these quarrels clearer, we will separate their histories 
and take them thus: Wales, first; France, second; Scotland, 
third. 

Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the 
side of the barons in the reign of the stupid old king, but had 
afterwards sworn allegiance to him. When King Edward came 
to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear allegiance to 
him also, which he refused to do. The king, being crowned 
and in his own dominions, three times more required Llewellyn 
to come and do homage; and three times more Llewellyn said 
he would rather not. He was going to be married to Eleanor 
de Montfort, a young lady of the family mentioned in the last 
reign ; and it chanced that this young lady, coming from France 
with her youngest brother, Emeric, was taken by an English 
ship, and was ordered by the English king to be detained. 
LTpon this the quarrel came to a head. The king went with his 
fleet to the coast of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn 
that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of 
Snowdon, in which no provisions could reach him, he was soon 
starved into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into 
paying the expenses of the war. The king, however, forgave 
him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and consented 
to his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales to 
obedience. 

But the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet, 
pleasant people, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 131 

among the mountains, and to set before them with free hospi¬ 
tality whatever they had to eat and drink, and to play to them 
on their harps, and sing their native ballads to them, were a 
people of great spirit when their blood was up. Englishmen, 
after this affair, began to be insolent in Wales, and to assume 
the air of masters ; and the Welsh pride could not hear it. 
Moreover, they believed in that unlucky old Merlin, some of 
whose unlucky old prophecies somebody always seemed doomed 
to remember when there was a chance of its doing harm; and 
just at this time some blind old gentleman, with a harp and a 
long white beard, who was an excellent person, hut had become 
of an unknown age and tedious, hurst out with a declaration 
that Merlin had predicted that, when English money had become 
round, a prince of Wales would be crowned in London. Now, 
King Edward had recently forbid the English penny to he cut 
into halves and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and had 
actually introduced a round coin; therefore the Welsh people 
said this was the time Merlin meant, and rose accordingly. 

King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn’s 
brother, by heaping favours upon him ; hut he was the first to 
revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy 
night, he surprised the castle of Hawarden, in possession of 
which an English nobleman had been left, killed the whole garri¬ 
son, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. Upon 
this the Welsh people rose like one man. King Edward, with 
his army, marching from Worcester to the Menai Strait, crossed 
it — near to where the wonderful tubular iron bridge now, in days 
so different, makes a passage for railway trains — by a bridge of 
boats that enabled forty men to march abreast. He subdued 
the island of Anglesea, and sent his men forward to observe 
the enemy. The sudden appearance of the Welsh created a 
panic among them, and they fell back to the bridge. The tide 
had in the mean time risen and separated the boats ; the Welsh 
pursuing them, they were driven into the sea, and there they 
sunk, in their heavy iron armour, by thousands. After this 
victory, Llewellyn, helped by the severe winter weather of 
Wales, gained another battle ; but the king ordering a portion 
of his English army to advance through South Wales, and catch 
him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely turning to meet 
this new enemy, he was surprised and killed, — very meanly, 
for he was unarmed and defenceless. His head was struck off, 


132 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the Tower, en¬ 
circled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow, 
some say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule 
of the prediction. 

David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly 
sought after by the king, and hunted by his own country¬ 
men. One of them finally betrayed him, with his wife and 
children. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quar¬ 
tered ; and from that time this became the established punish¬ 
ment of traitors in England, — a punishment wholly without 
excuse, as being revolting, vile, and cruel, after its object is 
dead 5 and which has no sense in it, as its only real degradation 
(and that nothing can blot out) is to the country that permits 
on any consideration such abominable barbarity. 

Wales was now subdued. The queen giving birth to a young 
prince in the castle of Carnarvon, the king showed him to the 
Welsh people as their countryman, and called him Prince of 
Wales, — a title that has ever since been borne by the heir-appar¬ 
ent to the English throne, which that little prince soon became 
by the death of his elder brother. The king did better things 
for the Welsh than that, by improving their laws, and encour¬ 
aging their trade. Disturbances still took place, chiefly occa¬ 
sioned by the avarice and pride of the English lords, on whom 
Welsh lands and castles had been bestowed ; but they were 
subdued, and the country never rose again. There is a legend 
that, to prevent the people from being incited to rebellion by 
the songs of their bards and harpers, Edward had them all put 
to death. Some of them may have fallen among other men 
who held out against the king ; but this general slaughter is, I 
think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made 
a song about it many years afterwards and sang it by the Welsh 
firesides until it came to be believed. 

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the Eirst arose in this 
way. The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship and the 
other an English ship, happened to go to the same place in their 
boats to fill their casks with fresh water. Being rough, angry 
fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight, — the English 
with their fists, the Normans with their knives, — and in the 
fight a Norman was killed. The Norman crew, instead of re¬ 
venging themselves upon those English sailors with whom they 



CARNARVON CASTLE 






























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


133 


had quarrelled (who were too strong for them, I suspect), took 
to their ship again in a great rage, attacked the first English ship 
they met, laid hold of an unoffending merchant who happened 
to he on board, and brutally hanged him in the rigging of their 
own vessel with a dog at his feet. This so enraged the English 
sailors that there was no restraining them; and whenever and 
wherever English sailors met Norman sailors, they fell upon 
each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch sailors took 
part with the English, the French and Genoese sailors helped 
the Normans; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing 
over the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as the 
sea itself when it is disturbed. 

King Edward’s fame had been so high abroad that he had 
been chosen to decide a difference between France and another 
foreign power, and had lived upon the Continent three years. 
At first, neither he nor the French king [Philip (the good Louis 
had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels; but 
when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and utterly de¬ 
feated a Norman fleet of two hundred in a pitched battle fought 
round a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, the 
matter became too serious to be passed over. King Edward, as 
Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself before the 
king of France at Paris, and answer for the damage done by his 
sailor subjects. At first he sent the Bishop of London as his 
representative, and then his brother Edmund, who was married 
to the French queen’s mother. I am afraid Edmund was an 
easy man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charm¬ 
ing relations, the French-court ladies; at all events, he was 
induced to give up his brother’s dukedom forty days, — as a 
mere form, the French king said, to satisfy his honour, — and he 
was so very much astonished, when the time was out, to find 
that the French king had no idea of giving it up again that I 
should not wonder if it hastened his death, which soon took 
place. 

King Edward was a king to win his foreign dukedom back 
again, if it could be won by energy and valour. He raised a large 
army, renounced his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed 
the sea to carry war into France. Before any important battle was 
fought, however, a truce was agreed upon for two years, and in 
the course of that time the Pope effected a reconciliation. King 
Edward, who was now a widower, having lost his affectionate 


134 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and good wife, Eleanor, married the French king’s sister, Mar¬ 
garet ; and the Prince of Wales was contracted to the French 
king’s daughter, Isabella. 

Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this 
hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife 
it caused, there came to he established one of the greatest 
powers that the English people now possess. The preparations 
for the war being very expensive, and King Edward greatly 
wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways of raising 
it, some of the barons began firmly to oppose him. Two of 
them in particular, Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and 
Boger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, were so stout against him that 
they maintained he had no right to command them to head his 
forces in Guienne, and flatly refused to go there. u By Heaven, 
Sir Earl,” said the king to the Earl of Hereford, in a great 
passion, u you shall either go or be hanged ! ” “ By Heaven, 

Sir King,” replied the earl, “ I will neither go nor yet will I 
be hanged ; ” and both he and the other earl sturdily left the 
court, attended b} r many lords. The king tried every means of 
raising money. He taxed the clergy, in spite of all the Pope 
said to the contrary; and when they refused to pay reduced 
them to submission by saying, Very well, then they had no 
claim upon the government for protection, and any man might 
plunder them who would, — which a good many men were very 
ready to do, and very readily did, and which the clergy found 
too losing a game to be played at long. He seized all the wool 
and leather in the hands of the merchants, promising to pay for 
it some fine day ; and he set a tax upon the exportation of wool, 
which was so unpopular among the traders that it was called 
u The evil toll.” But all would not do. The barons, led by 
those two great earls, declared any taxes imposed without the 
consent of Parliament unlawful ; and the Parliament refused 
to impose taxes, until the king should confirm afresh the two 
Great Charters, and should solemnly declare in writing that 
there was no power in the country to raise money from the people 
evermore but the power of Parliament representing all ranks of 
the people. The king was very unwilling to diminish his own 
power by allowing this great privilege in the Parliament; but 
there was no help for it, and he at last complied. We shall 
come to another king, by and by, who might have saved his 
head from rolling off, if he had profited by this example. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


135 


The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the good 
sense and wisdom of this king. Many of the laws were much 
improved ; provision was made for the greater safety of travel¬ 
lers, and the apprehension of thieves and murderers ; the priests 
were prevented from holding too much land, and so becoming 
too powerful; and justices of the peace were first appointed 
(though not at first under that name) in various parts of the 
country. 

And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and last¬ 
ing trouble of the reign of King Edward the First. 

About thirteen years after King Edward’s coronation, Alex¬ 
ander the Third, the king of Scotland, died of a fall from his 
horse. He had been married to Margaret, King Edward’s sister. 
All their children being dead, the Scottish crown became the 
right of a young princess only eight years old, the daughter of 
Eric, king of Norway, who had married a daughter of the 
deceased sovereign. King Edward proposed that the Maiden of 
Norway, as this princess was called, should be engaged to be 
married to his eldest son ; but unfortunately, as she was coming 
over to England, she fell sick, and, landing on one of the 
Orkney Islands, died there. A great commotion immediately 
began in Scotland, where as many as thirteen noisy claimants to 
the vacant throne started up, and made a general confusion. 

King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and jus¬ 
tice, it seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. 
He accepted the trust, and went with an army to the Border 
land where England and Scotland joined. There, he called 
upon the Scottish gentlemen to meet him at the castle of Nor- 
ham, on the English side of the river Tweed ; and to that 
castle they came. But before he would take any step in the 
business, he required those Scottish gentlemen, one and all, to 
do homage to him as their superior lord; and when they hesi¬ 
tated, he said, “ By holy Edward, whose crown I wear, I will 
have my rights, or I will die maintaining them ! ” The Scot¬ 
tish gentlemen, who had not expected this, were disconcerted, 
and asked for three weeks to think about it. 

At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, 
on a green plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the 
competitors for the Scottish throne, there were only two who 
had any real claim, in right of their near kindred to the royal 


136 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


family. These were John Baliol and Bobert Bruce; and the 
right was, I have no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. At 
this particular meeting John Baliol was not present, hut Bobert 
Bruce was; and on Bobert Bruce being formally asked whether 
he acknowledged the king of England for his superior lord, he 
answered plainly and distinctly, Yes, he did. Next day John 
Baliol appeared, and said the same. This point settled, some 
arrangements were made for inquiring into their titles. 

The inquiry occupied a pretty long time, — more than a year. 
While it was going on, King Edward took the opportunity of 
making a journey through Scotland, and calling upon the Scot¬ 
tish people of all degrees to acknowledge themselves his vassals, 
or be imprisoned until they did. In the mean while, commis¬ 
sioners were appointed to conduct the inquiry, a parliament was 
held at Berwick about it, the two claimants were heard at full 
length, and there was a vast amount of talking. At last, in the 
great hall of the castle of Berwick, the king gave judgment in 
favour of John Baliol; who, consenting to receive his crown by 
the king of England’s favour and permission, was crowned at 
Scone, in an old stone chair which had been used for ages in the 
abbey there, at the coronations of Scottish kings. Then King 
Edward caused the great seal of Scotland, used since the late 
king’s death, to be broken in four pieces, and placed in the Eng¬ 
lish treasury ; and considered that he now had Scotland (accord¬ 
ing to the common saying) under his thumb. 

Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King 
Edward, determined that the Scottish king should not forget he 
was his vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and defend 
himself and his judges before the English Parliament when 
appeals from the decisions of Scottish courts of justice were 
being heard. At length John Baliol, who had no great heart 
of his own, had so much heart put into hjm by the brave spirit 
of the Scottish people, who took this as a national insult, that 
he refused to come any more. Thereupon, the king further 
required him to help him in his war abroad (which was then in 
progress), and to give up, as security for his good behaviour 
in future, the three strong Scottish castles of Jedburgh, Box- 
burgh, and Berwick. Nothing of this being done, — on the 
contrary, the Scottish people concealing their king among their 
mountains in the highlands, and showing a determination to 
resist, — Edward marched to Berwick with an army of thirty 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


137 


thousand foot and four thousand horse, took the castle, and 
slew its whole garrison, and the inhabitants of the town as well, — 
men, women, and children. Lord Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, then 
went on to the castle of Dunbar, before which a battle was 
fought, and the whole Scottish army defeated with great slaugh¬ 
ter. The victory being complete, the Earl of Surrey was left 
as guardian of Scotland; the principal offices in that kingdom 
were given to Englishmen; the more powerful Scottish nobles 
were obliged to come and live in England; the Scottish crown 
and sceptre were brought away ; and even the old stone chair 
was carried off, and placed in Westminster Abbey, where you 
may see it now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for 
a residence, with permission to range about within a circle of 
twenty miles. Three years afterwards he was allowed to go to 
Normandy, where he had estates, and where he passed the 
remaining six years of his life ; far more happily, I dare say, 
than he had lived for a long while in angry Scotland. 

Now, there was in the west of Scotland a gentleman of small 
fortune, named William Wallace, the second son of a Scottish 
knight. He was a man of great size and great strength; he was 
very brave and daring; when he spoke to a body of his coun¬ 
trymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful manner by the 
power of his burning words ; he loved Scotland dearly, and he 
hated England with his utmost might. The domineering conduct 
of the English who now held the places of trust in Scotland 
made them as intolerable to the proud Scottish people as they 
had been under similar circumstances to the Welsh; and no 
man in all Scotland regarded them with so much smothered rage 
as William Wallace. One day an Englishman in office, little 
knowing what he was, affronted him. A\ allace instantly struck 
him dead; and taking refuge among the rocks and hills, and 
there joining with his countryman, Sir William Douglas, who 
was also in arms against King Edward, became the most resolute 
and undaunted champion of a people struggling for their inde¬ 
pendence that ever lived upon the earth. 

The English guardian of the kingdom fled before him ; and, 
thus encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and 
fell upon the English without mercy, ihe Earl of Surrey, by 
the king’s commands, raised all the power of the Border counties, 
and two English armies poured into Scotland. Only one chief, 
in the face of those armies, stood by Wallace, who, with a force 


138 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


of forty thousand men, awaited the invaders at a place on the 
river Forth, within two miles of Stirling. Across the river 
there was only one poor wooden bridge, called the Bridge of 
Kildean, — so narrow that but two men could cross it abreast. 
With his eyes upon this bridge, Wallace posted the greater part 
of his men among some rising grounds, and waited calmly. 
When the English army came up on the opposite bank of the 
river, messengers were sent forward to offer terms. Wallace 
sent them back with a defiance, in the name of the freedom of 
Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey, in com¬ 
mand of the English, with their eyes also on the bridge, advised 
him to be discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged to imme¬ 
diate battle by some other officers, and particularly by Cressing- 
ham, King Edward’s treasurer, and a rash man, gave the word 
of command to advance. One thousand English crossed the 
bridge, two abreast; the Scottish troops were as motionless as 
stone images. Two thousand English crossed; three thousand, 
four thousand, five. Not a feather, all this time, had been seen 
to stir among the Scottish bonnets. Now they all fluttered. 
u Forward, one party, to the foot of the bridge ! ” cried Wallace, 
“ and let no more English cross ! The rest, down with me on 
the five thousand who have come over, and cut them all to 
pieces ! ” It was done, in the sight of the whole remainder of 
the English army, who could give no help. Cressingham him¬ 
self was killed, and the Scotch made whips for their horses of 
his skin. 

King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the suc¬ 
cesses on the Scottish side which followed, and which enabled 
bold Wallace to win the whole country back again, and even to 
ravage the English borders. But after a few winter months, the 
king returned, and took the field with more than his usual 
energy. One night, when a kick from his horse, as they both 
lay on the ground together, broke two of his ribs, and a cry 
arose that he was killed, he leaped into his saddle, regardless of 
the pain that he suffered, and rode through the camp. Dav 
then appearing, he gave the word (still, of course, in that 
bruised and aching state) forward! and led his army on to 
near Falkirk, where the Scottish forces were seen drawn up 
on some stony ground, behind a morass. Here he defeated 
Wallace, and killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the 
shattered remainder, Wallace drew back to Stirling; but being 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


139 


pursued, set fire to the town that it might give no help to the 
English, and escaped. The inhabitants of Perth afterwards set 
fire to their houses for the same reason ; and the king, unable to 
find provisions, was forced to withdraw his army. 

Another Robert Bruce, the grandson of him who had dis¬ 
puted the Scottish crown with Baliol, was now in arms against 
the king (that elder Bruce being dead), and also John Comyn, 
Baliol’s nephew. These two young men might agree in oppos¬ 
ing Edward, but could agree in nothing else, as they were rivals 
for the throne of Scotland. Probably it was because they knew 
this, and knew what troubles must arise, even if they could 
hope to get the better of the great English king, that the prin¬ 
cipal Scottish people applied to the Pope for his interference. 
The Pope, on the principle of losing nothing for want of trying 
to get it, very coolly claimed that Scotland belonged to him ; 
but this was a little too much, and the Parliament in a friendly 
manner told him so. 

In the spring-time of the year 1303, the king sent Sir John 
Segrave, whom he made governor of Scotland, with twenty 
thousand men to reduce the rebels. Sir John was not as care¬ 
ful as he should have been, but encamped at Rosslyn, near 
Edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts. The Scot¬ 
tish forces saw their advantage, fell on each part separately, 
defeated each, and killed all the prisoners. Then came the 
king himself once more, as soon as a great army could be raised; 
he passed through the whole north of Scotland, laying waste 
whatsoever came in his way ; and he took up his winter quar¬ 
ters at Dunfermline. The Scottish cause now looked so hope¬ 
less that Comyn and the other nobles made submission, and 
received their pardons. Wallace alone stood out. He was 
invited to surrender, though on no distinct pledge that his life 
should be spared; but he still defied the ireful king, and lived 
among the steep crags of the Highland glens, where the eagles 
made their nests, and where the mountain torrents roared, and 
the white snow was deep, and the hitter winds blew round his 
unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch-dark night 
wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit; 
nothing could lower his courage ; nothing could induce him to 
forget or to forgive his country’s wrongs. Even when the 
castle of Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by the 
king with every kind of military engine then in use; even 


140 


A CHILD’S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND 


when the lead upon cathedral roofs 'was taken down to help to 
make them; even when the king, though an old man, com¬ 
manded in the siege as if he were a youth, being so resolved to 
conquer; even when the brave garrison (then found with 
amazement to he not two hundred people, including several 
ladies) were starved and beaten out, and were made to submit 
on their knees and with every form of disgrace that could aggra¬ 
vate their sufferings, — even then, when there was not a ray of 
hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as proud and firm as if 
he had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying dead 
at his feet. 

Who betrayed William Wallace in the end is not quite cer¬ 
tain. That he was betrayed — probably by an attendant — is 
too true. He was taken to the castle of Dumbarton, under Sir 
John Menteith, and thence to London, where the great fame of 
his bravery and resolution attracted immense concourses of peo¬ 
ple to behold him. He was tried in Westminster Hall, with a 
crown of laurel on his head, — it is supposed because he was 
reported to have said that he ought to wear, or that he would 
wear, a crown there, — and was found guilty as a robber, a 
murderer, and a traitor. What they called a robber (he said to 
those who tried him) he was, because he had taken spoil from 
the king’s men. What they called a murderer, he was, because 
he had slain an insolent Englishman. What they called a trai¬ 
tor, he was not, for he had never sworn allegiance to the king, 
and had ever scorned to do it. He was dragged at the tails of 
horses to West Smithfield, and there hanged on a high gallows, 
torn open before he was dead, beheaded, and quartered. His 
head was set upon a pole on London Bridge, his right arm was 
sent to Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth and 
Aberdeen. But if King Edward had had his body cut into 
inches, and had sent every separate inch into a separate town, 
he could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. 
Wallace will he remembered in songs and stories while there 
are songs and stories in the English tongue ; and Scotland will 
hold him dear while her lakes and mountains last. 

Peleased from this dreaded enemy, the king made a fairer 
plan of government for Scotland, divided the offices of honour 
among Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave past 
offences, and thought, in his old age, that his work was done. 

But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, and 





STIRLING CASTLE 






















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


141 


made an appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church of the 
Minorites. There is a story that Comyn was false to Bruce, 
and had informed against him to the king ; that Bruce was 
warned of his danger and the necessity of flight, by receiving 
one night as he sat at supper, from his friend the Earl of 
Gloucester, twelve pennies and a pair of spurs ; that as he was 
riding angrily to keep his appointment (through a snow-storm, 
with his horse’s shoes reversed that he might not he tracked), 
he met an evil-looking serving-man, a messenger of Comyn, 
whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress he found letters 
that proved Comyn’s treachery. However this may be, they 
were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being hot-headed 
rivals ; and whatever they quarrelled about, they certainly did 
quarrel in the church where they met; and Bruce drew his 
dagger, and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pavement. 
When Bruce came out, pale and disturbed, the friends who 
were waiting for him asked what was the matter. “ I think I 
have killed Comyn,” said he. “ You only think so ? ” returned 
one of them : “ I will make sure ! ” and going into the church, 
and finding him alive, stabbed him again and again. Knowing 
that the king would never forgive this new deed of violence, 
the party then declared Bruce king of Scotland; got him 
crowned at Scone, — without the chair ; and set up the rebel¬ 
lious standard once again. 

When the king heard of it, he kindled with fiercer anger than 
he had ever shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales and 
two hundred and seventy of the young nobility to be knighted, 
— the trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down to make 
room for their tents, and they watched their armour all night, 
according to the old usage, some in the Temple Church, some 
in Westminster Abbey ; and at the public feast which then 
took place, he swore, by Heaven, and by two swans covered 
with gold network which his minstrels placed upon the table, 
that he would avenge the death of Comyn, and would punish 
the false Bruce. And before all the company, he charged the 
prince, his son, in case that he should die before accomplishing 
his vow, not to bury him until it was fulfilled. Next morning, 
the prince and the rest of the young knights rode away to the 
Border country to join the English army, and the king, now 
weak and sick, followed in a horse-litter. 

Bruce, after losing a battle, and undergoing many dangers 


142 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and much misery, fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed 
through the winter. That winter, Edward passed in hunting 
down and executing Bruce’s relations and adherents, sparing 
neither youth nor age, showing no touch of pity or sign of 
mercy. In the following spring, Bruce reappeared, and gained 
some victories. In these frays, both sides were grievously 
cruel ; for instance, Bruce’s two brothers, being taken captives, 
desperately wounded, were ordered by the king to instant execu¬ 
tion. Bruce’s friend, Sir John Douglas, taking his own castle 
of Douglas out of the hands of an English lord, roasted the dead 
bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of every 
movable within it; which dreadful cookery his men called the 
Douglas larder. Bruce, still successful, however, drove the 
Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into the castle of 
Ayr, and laid siege to it. 

The king, who had been laid up all the winter, but had 
directed the army from his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, 
and there, causing the litter in which he had travelled to be 
placed in the cathedral as an offering to Heaven, mounted his 
horse once more, and for the last time. He was now sixty- 
nine years old, and had reigned thirty-five years. He was so 
ill that in four days he could go no more than six miles ; still, 
even at that pace, he went on, and resolutely kept his face 
towards the Border. At length he lay down at the village 
of Burgh-upon-Sands ; and there, telling those around him to 
impress upon the prince that he was to remember his father’s 
vow, and was never to rest until he had thoroughly subdued 
Scotland, he yielded up his last breath. 


S 


I 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


143 


CHAPTER XVII 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND 

King Edward the Second, the first Prince of Wales, was 
twenty-three years old when his father died. There was a cer¬ 
tain favourite of his, a young man from Gascony, named Piers 
Gaveston, of whom his father had so much disapproved that 
he had ordered him out of England, and had made his son 
swear by the side of his sick-bed never to bring him back. But 
the prince no sooner found himself king than he broke his oath, 
as so many other princes and kings did (they were far too ready 
to take oaths), and sent for his dear friend immediately. 

Now this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but was a 
reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested by the 
proud English lords ; not only because he had such power over 
the king, and made the court such a dissipated place, but also 
because he could ride better than they at tournaments, and was 
used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes on them —call¬ 
ing one the old hog; another the stage-player; another the 
Jew; another the black dog of Ardenne. This was as poor 
wit as need be, but it made those lords very wroth; and the 
surly Earl of Warwick, who was the black dog, swore that the 
time should come when Piers Gaveston should feel the black 
dog’s teeth. 

It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming. 
The king made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him vast 
riches; and when the king went over to Erance to marry the 
Erench princess, Isabella, daughter of Philip le Bel, who was 
said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, he made 
Gaveston regent of the kingdom. His splendid marriage cere¬ 
mony in the Church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where there were 
four kings and three queens present (quite a pack of court-cards, 
for I dare say the knaves were not wanting), being over, he 
seemed to care little or nothing for his beautiful wife, but was 
wild with impatience to meet Gaveston again. 


144 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

When he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody 
else, but ran into the favourite’s arms before a great concourse of 
people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him his 
brother. At the coronation which soon followed, Gaveston was 
the richest and brightest of all the glittering company there, and 
had the honour of carrying the crown. This made the proud 
lords fiercer than ever; the people, too, despised the favourite, 
and would never call him Earl of Cornwall, however much he 
complained to the king and asked him to punish them for not 
doing so, but persisted in styling him plain Piers Gaveston. 

The barons were so unceremonious with the king in giving 
him to understand that they would not bear this favourite, that 
the king was obliged to send him out of the country. The fa¬ 
vourite himself was made to take an oath (more oaths !) that he 
would never come back ; and the barons supposed him to be 
banished in disgrace, until they heard that he was appointed 
governor of Ireland. Even this was not enough for the be¬ 
sotted king, who brought him home again in a year’s time, 
and not only disgusted the court and the people by his doting 
folly, but offended his beautiful wife, too, who never liked him 
afterwards. 

He had now the old royal want, — of money, — and the 
barons had the new power of positively refusing to let him 
raise any. He summoned a parliament at York ; the barons 
refused to make one while the favourite was near him. He 
summoned another parliament at Westminster, and sent Gav¬ 
eston away. Then the barons came completely armed, and 
appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in the 
state, and in the king’s household. He got some money on 
these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston to the Bor¬ 
der country, where they spent it in idling away the time and 
feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English out of 
Scotland. For though the old king had even made this poor 
weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would not bury 
his bones, but would have them boiled clean in a caldron, and 
carried before the English army until Scotland was entirely 
subdued, the second Edward was so unlike the first that Bruce 
gained strength and power every day. 

The committee of nobles, after some months of deliberation, 
ordained that the king should henceforth call a parliament 
together once every year, and even twice if necessary, instead 



DOUGLAS CASTLE 
























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


145 


of summoning it only when he chose. Further, that Gaves- 
ton should once more be banished, and this time on pain of 
death if he ever came back. The king’s tears were of no avail; 
he was obliged to send his favourite to Flanders. As soon as 
he had done so, however, he dissolved the Parliament, with the 
low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to the north of England, 
thinking to get an army about him to oppose the nobles. And 
once again he brought Gaveston home and heaped upon him 
all the riches and titles of w r hich the barons had deprived him. 

The lords saw now that there was nothing for it but to put 
the favourite to death. They could have done so legally, accord¬ 
ing to the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I am sorry 
to say, in a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of Lancaster, 
the king’s cousin, they first of all attacked the king and Gaves¬ 
ton at Newcastle. They had time to escape by sea; and the 
mean king, having his precious Gaveston with him, was quite 
content to leave his lovely wife behind. When they were 
comparatively safe, they separated: the king went to York to 
collect a force of soldiers; and the favourite shut himself up 
in the mean time in Scarborough Castle, overlooking the sea. 
This was what the barons wanted. They knew that the castle 
could not hold out; they attacked it, and made Gaveston sur¬ 
render. He delivered himself up to the Earl of Pembroke — 
that lord whom he had called the Jew — on the earl’s pledg¬ 
ing his faith and knightly word that no harm should happen 
to him and no violence be done him. 

Now, it was agreed with Gaveston that he should be taken 
to the castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honourable cus¬ 
tody. They travelled as far as Dedington, near Banbury, 
where, in the castle of that place, they stopped for a night to 
rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left his prisoner there, 
knowing what would happen, or really left him, thinking no 
harm, and only going (as he pretended) to visit his wife, the 
countess, who was in the neighbourhood, is no great matter now ; 
in any case, he was bound as an honourable gentleman to protect 
his prisoner, and he did not do it. In the morning, 'while the 
favourite was yet in bed, he was required to dress himself, and 
come down into the courtyard. He did so without any mistrust, 
but started and turned pale when he found it full of strange 
armed men. “ I think you know me?” said their leader, also 
armed from head to foot. “ I am the black dog of Ardenne.” 


146 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


The time was come when Piers Gaveston was to feel the 
black dog’s teeth indeed. They set him on a mule, and carried 
him in mock state and with military music to the black dog’s 
kennel, Warwick Castle, where a hasty council, composed of 
some great noblemen, considered what should be done with him. 
Some were for sparing him; but one loud voice — it was the 
black dog’s bark, I dare say — sounded through the castle hall, 
uttering these words, “ You have the fox in your power. Let 
him go now, and you must hunt him again.” 

They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the feet 
of the Earl of Lancaster, — the old hog ; but the old hog was as 
savage as the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant road 
leading from Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful river 
Avon, by which, long afterwards, William Shakespeare w r as born 
and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright landscape of the 
beautiful May day ; and there they struck off his wretched head, 
and stained the dust with his blood. 

When the king heard of this black deed, in his grief and rage 
he denounced relentless war against his barons ; and both sides 
were in arms for half a year. But it then became necessary for 
them to join their forces against Bruce, who had used the time 
well while they were divided, and had now a great power in 
Scotland. 

Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging 
Stirling Castle, and that the governor had been obliged to 
pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved 
before a certain day. Hereupon the king ordered his nobles 
and their fighting men to meet him at Berwick; but the nobles 
cared so little for the king, and so neglected the summons and 
lost time, that only on the day before that appointed for the 
surrender did the king find himself at Stirling, and even then 
with a smaller force than he had expected. However, he had 
altogether a hundred thousand men, and Bruce had not more 
than forty thousand; but Bruce’s army was strongly posted in 
three square columns, on the ground lying between the Burn or 
Brook of Bannock and the walls of Stirling Castle. 

On the very evening when the king came up, Bruce did a 
brave act that encouraged his men. He was seen by a certain 
Henry de Bohun, an English knight, riding about before his 
army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in his hand, and 
a crown of gold on his head. This English knight, who was 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


147 


mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in steel, strongly armed, 
and able (as he thought) to overthrow Bruce by crushing him 
with his mere weight, set spurs to his great charger, rode on 
him, and made a thrust at him with his heavy spear. Bruce 
parried the thrust, and with one blow of his battle-axe split his 
skull. 

The Scottish men did not forget this, next day, when the 
battle raged. Randolph, Bruce’s valiant nephew, rode, with the 
small body of men he commanded, into such a host of the Eng¬ 
lish, all shining in polished armour in the sunlight, that they 
seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged 
into the sea. But they fought so well, and did such dreadful 
execution, that the English staggered. Then came Bruce him¬ 
self upon them, with all the rest of his army. While they were 
thus hard pressed and amazed, there appeared upon the hills 
what they supposed to be a new Scottish army, but what were 
really only the camp-followers, in number fifteen thousand, whom 
Bruce had taught to show themselves at that place and time. 
The Earl of Gloucester, commanding the English horse, made a 
last rush to change the fortune of the day, but Bruce (like Jack 
the Giant-Killer in the story) had had pits dug in the ground, 
and covered over with turfs and stakes. Into these, as they 
gave way beneath the weight of the horses, riders and horses 
rolled by hundreds. The English were completely routed; all 
their treasure, stores, and engines were taken by the Scottish 
men; so many wagons and other wheeled vehicles were seized 
that it is related that they would have reached, if they had 
been drawn out in a line, one hundred and eighty miles. The 
fortunes of Scotland were, for the time, completely changed ; and 
never was a battle won more famous upon Scottish ground than 
this great battle of Bannockburn. 

Plague and famine succeeded in England; and still the 
powerless king and his disdainful lords were always in conten¬ 
tion. Some of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made proposals 
to Bruce to accept the rule of that country. He sent his 
brother Edward to them, who was crowned king of Ireland. 
He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his Irish 
wars; but his brother was defeated in the end and killed. 
Robert Bruce, returning to Scotland, still increased his strength 
there. 

As the king’s ruin had begun in a favourite, so it seemed 


148 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


likely to end in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all 
upon himself ; and his new favourite was one Hugh le Des- 
penser, the son of a gentleman of ancient family. Hugh was 
handsome and brave; but he was the favourite of a weak king, 
whom no man cared a rush for, and that was a dangerous place 
to hold. The nobles leagued against him, because the king 
liked him; and they lay in wait both for his ruin and his 
father’s. How, the king had married him to the daughter of 
the late Earl of Gloucester, and had given both him and his 
father great possessions in Wales. In their endeavours to extend 
these, they gave violent offence to an angry Welsh gentleman, 
namd John de Mowbray, and to divers other angry Welsh gen¬ 
tlemen, who resorted to arms, took their castles, and seized their 
estates. The Earl of Lancaster had first placed the favourite 
(who was a poor relation of his own) at court, and he consid¬ 
ered his own dignity offended by the preference he received and 
the honours he acquired; so he, and the barons who were his 
friends, joined the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent a 
message to the king demanding to have the favourite and his 
father banished. At first the king unaccountably took it into 
his head to be spirited, and to send them a bold reply ; but 
when they quartered themselves around Holborn and Clerken- 
well, and went down armed to the Parliament at Westminster, 
he gave way, and complied with their demands. 

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose 
out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful queen, hap¬ 
pening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal 
castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained there until 
morning. The governor of this castle, who was one of the 
enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refused 
admission to the queen; a scuffle took place among the common 
men on either side, and some of the royal attendants were 
killed. The people, who cared nothing for the king, were very 
angry that their beautiful queen should be thus rudely treated 
in her own dominions; and the king, taking advantage of this 
feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and then called the two 
Hespensers home. Upon this, the confederate lords and the 
Welshmen went over to Bruce. The king encountered them at 
Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of distin¬ 
guished prisoners; among them, the Earl of Lancaster, now an 
old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved. This earl 



* 


BANNOCKBURN 


















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


149 


was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and there tried and 
found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose; he 
was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was 
insulted, pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or 
bridle, carried out, and beheaded. Eight-and-twenty knights 
were hanged, drawn, and quartered. When the king had 
despatched this bloody work, and had made a fresh and a long 
truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers into greater favour 
than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester. 

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Bor- 
oughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide 
against the king. This was Roger Mortimer, always resolutely 
opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and placed for 
safe custody in the Tower of London. He treated his guards 
to a quantity of wine into which he had put a sleeping potion; 
and, when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got 
into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from 
the roof of the building with a rope ladder, passed the sentries, 
got down to the river, and made away in a boat to where ser¬ 
vants and horses were waiting for him. He finally escaped to 
Erance, where Charles le Bel, the brother of the beautiful 
queen, was king. Charles sought to quarrel with the king of 
England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage 
at his coronation. It was proposed that the beautiful queen 
should go over to arrange the dispute ; she went, and wrote 
home to the king that, as he was sick and could not come to 
France himself, perhaps it would be better to send over the 
young prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who 
could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose com¬ 
pany she would immediately return. The king sent him; but 
both he and the queen remained at the French court, and Roger 
Mortimer became the queen’s lover. 

When the king wrote, again and again, to the queen to come 
home, she did not reply that she despised him too much to live 
with him any more (which was the truth), but said she was 
afraid of the two Despensers. In short, her design was to over¬ 
throw the favourites’ power, and the king’s power, such as it 
was, and invade England. Having obtained a French force of 
two thousand men, and being joined by all the English exiles 
then in France, she landed, within a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, 
where she was immediately joined by the earls of Kent and 


150 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Norfolk, the king’s two brothers; by other powerful noblemen ; 
and lastly, by the first English general who was despatched to 
check her, who went over to her with all his men. The people 
of London, receiving these tidings, would do nothing for the 
king, but broke open the Tower, let out all his prisoners, and 
threw up their caps and hurrahed for the beautiful queen. 

The king, with his two favourites, fled to Bristol, where he 
left old Despenser in charge of the town and castle, while he 
went on with the son to Wales. The Bristol men being opposed 
to the king, and it being impossible to hold the town with ene¬ 
mies everywhere within the walls, Despenser yielded it up on 
the third day, and was instantly brought to trial for having 
traitorously influenced what was called “ the king’s mind,” — 
though I doubt if the king ever had any. He was a venerable 
old man, upwards of ninety years of age; but his age gained no 
respect or mercy. He was hanged, torn open while he was yet 
alive, cut up into pieces, and thrown to the dogs. His son was 
soon taken, tried at Hereford before the same judge on a long 
series of foolish charges, found guilty, and hanged upon a 
gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of nettles round his head. 
His poor old father and he were innocent enough of any worse 
crimes than the crime of having been friends of a king, on 
whom, as a mere man, they would never have deigned to cast 
a favourable look. It is a bad crime, I know, and leads to 
worse; but many lords and gentlemen — I even think some 
ladies, too, if I recollect right — have committed it in England, 
who have neither been given to the dogs, nor hanged up fifty 
feet high. 

The wretched king was running here and there, all this time, 
and never getting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself 
up, and was taken off to Kenilworth Castle. When he was 
safely lodged there, the queen went to London, and met the 
Parliament. And the Bishop of Hereford, who was the most 
skilful of her friends, said, What was to be done now ? Here 
was an imbecile, indolent, miserable king upon the throne: 
would n’t it be better to take him off, and put his son there 
instead ? I don’t know whether the queen really pitied him 
at this pass, but she began to cry; so the bishop said, “ Well, 
my lords and gentlemen, what do you think, upon the whole, 
of sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing if his Majesty (God 
bless him, and forbid we should depose him!) won’t resign ? ” 



KENILWORTH CASTLE 













A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


151 


My lords and gentlemen thought it a good notion ; so a 
deputation of them went down to Kenilworth, and there the 
king came into the great hall of the castle, commonly dressed 
in a poor black gown ; and, when he saw a certain bishop 
among them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a 
wretched spectacle of himself. Somebody lifted him up ; and 
then Sir William Trussel, the Speaker of the House of Com¬ 
mons, almost frightened him to death by making him a tremen¬ 
dous speech, to the effect that he was no longer a king, and 
that everybody renounced allegiance to him. After which, Sir 
Thomas Blount, the Steward of the Household, nearly finished 
him, by coming forward and breaking his white wand, which 
was a ceremony only performed at a king’s death. Being asked 
in this pressing manner what he thought of resigning, the king 
said he thought it was the best thing he could do. So he did 
it, and they proclaimed his son next day. 

I wish I could close his history by saying that he lived 
a harmless life in the castle and the castle-gardens at Kenil¬ 
worth, many years ; that he had a favourite, and plenty to eat 
and drink ; and, having that, wanted nothing. But he was 
shamefully humiliated. He was outraged and slighted, and had 
dirty water from ditches given him to shave with, and wept, 
and said he would have clean warm water, and was altogether 
very miserable. He was moved from this castle to that castle, 
and from that castle to the other castle, because this lord, 
or that lord, or the other lord, was too kind to him ; until at 
last he came to Berkeley Castle, near the river Severn, where 
(the Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) he fell into the 
hands of two black ruffians, called Thomas Gournay and William 
Ogle. 

One night, — it was the night of September 21, 1327, — 
dreadful screams were heard, by the startled people in the neigh¬ 
bouring town, ringing through the thick walls of the castle, and 
the dark deep night; and they said, as they were thus horribly 
awakened from their sleep, “ May Heaven be merciful to the 
king; for those cries forebode that no good is being done to him 
in his dismal prison ! ” Next morning he was dead, — not 
bruised, or stabbed, or marked upon the body, but much dis¬ 
torted in the face; and it was whispered afterwards that those 
two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burnt up his inside with 
a red-hot iron. 


152 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower of 
its beautiful cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles rising lightly 
in the air, you may remember that the wretched Edward the 
Second was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at 
forty-three years old, after being for nineteen years and a half 
a perfectly incapable king. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


153 


CHAPTER XVIII 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD 

Roger Mortimer, the queen’s lover (who escaped to France 
in the last chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he 
had had of the fate of favourites. Having through the queen’s 
influence come into possession of the estates of the two Despen- 
sers, he became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought to 
he the real ruler of England. The young king, who was 
crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usual solem¬ 
nities, resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to 
his ruin. 

The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer, — first, 
because he was a royal favourite; secondly, because he was sup¬ 
posed to have helped to make a peace with Scotland which now 
took place, and in virtue of which the young king’s sister Joan, 
only seven years old, was promised in marriage to David, the 
son and heir of Robert Bruce, who was only five years old. The 
nobles hated Mortimer because of his pride, riches, and power. 
They went so far as to take up arms against him; but were 
obliged to submit. The Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, 
but who afterwards went over to Mortimer and the queen, was 
made an example of in the following cruel manner. 

He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and 
he was persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the queen 
that poor King Edward the Second was not really dead ; and thus 
was betrayed into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to 
the throne. This was made out to be high treason ; and he 
was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They 
took the poor old lord outside the town of Winchester, and 
there kept him waiting some three or four hours, until they 
could find somebody to cut off his head. At last, a convict 
said he would do it if the government would pardon him in 
return; and they gave him the pardon, and, at one blow, he 
put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense. 


154 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

While the queen was in France, she had found a lovely and 
good young lady named Philippa, who she thought would 
make an excellent wife for her son. The young king married 
this lady soon after he came to the throne ; and her first child, 
Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards became celebrated, as we 
shall presently see, under the famous title of Edward the Black 
Prince. 

The young king, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of 
Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should 
proceed. A parliament was going to be held at Nottingham ; 
and that lord recommended that the favourite should be seized 
by night in Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now 
this, like many other things, was more easily said than done; 
because, to guard against treachery, the great gates of the castle 
were locked every night, and the great keys were carried up 
stairs to the queen, who laid them under her own pillow. But 
the castle had a governor; and the governor, being Lord 
Montacute’s friend, confided to him how he knew of a secret 
passage underground, hidden from observation by the weeds and 
brambles with which it was overgrown; and how through that 
passage the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night, 
and go straight to Mortimer’s room. Accordingly, upon a 
certain dark night at midnight, they made their way through 
this dismal place, startling the rats, and frightening the owls 
and bats; and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of 
the castle, where the king met them, and took them up a pro¬ 
foundly dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the 
voice of Mortimer in council with some friends; and bursting 
into the room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner. The 
queen cried out from her bedchamber, “ Oh, my sweet son, my 
dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer ! ” They carried him off, 
however ; and before the next Parliament, accused him of hav¬ 
ing made differences between the young king and his mother, 
and of having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent, and 
even of the late king; for as you know by this time, when they 
wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were not 
very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer was found 
guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. 
The king shut Lis mother up in genteel confinement, where she 
passed the rest of her life ; and now he became king in earnest. 

The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 155 

English lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their 
rights were not respected under the late peace, made war on their 
own account; choosing for their general, Edward, the son of 
John Baliol, who made such a vigorous fight that in less than 
two months he won the whole Scottish kingdom. He was 
joined, when thus triumphant, by the king and Parliament; and 
he and the king in person besieged the Scottish forces in Ber¬ 
wick. The whole Scottish army coming to the assistance of 
their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued that thirty thou¬ 
sand men are said to have been killed in it. Baliol was then 
crowned king of Scotland, doing homage to the king of Eng¬ 
land ; but little came of his successes after all ; for the Scottish 
men rose against him, within no very long time, and David Bruce 
came back within ten years and took his kingdom. 

France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the king 
had a much greater mind to conquer it. So he let Scotland 
alone, and pretended that he had a claim to the French throne 
in right of his mother. He had, in reality, no claim at all; 
but that mattered little in those times. He brought over to his 
cause many little princes and sovereigns, and even courted the 
alliance of the people of Flanders, — a busy, working com¬ 
munity, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head 
man was a brewer. With such forces as he raised by these 
means, Edward invaded France ; but he did little by that, 
except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of 
three hundred thousand pounds. The next year he did better, 
gaining a great sea fight in the harbor of Sluys. This success, 
however, was very short-lived; for the Flemings took fright at 
the siege of St. Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and 
baggage behind them. Philip, the French king, coming up 
with his army, and Edward being very anxious to decide the 

war, proposed to settle the difference by single combat with 
him, or by a fight of one hundred knights on each side. The 
French king said he thanked him; but being very well as he 

was, he would rather not. So after some skirmishing and 
talking, a short peace was made. 

It was soon broken by King Edward’s favouring the cause of 
John, Earl of Montford, a French nobleman, who asserted a 
claim of his own against the French king, and offered to do 
homage to England for the crown of France, if he could obtain 
it through England’s help. This French lord himself was soon 


156 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

defeated by the French king’s son, and shut up in a tower in 
Paris ; but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is 
said to have had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion, 
assembled the people of Brittany w T here she then was ; and 
showing them her infant son, made many pathetic entreaties to 
them not to desert her and their young lord. They took fire 
at this appeal, and rallied round her in the strong castle of 
Hennebon. Here she was not only beseiged without by the 
French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered within by a 
dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the people 
what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful, — first 
from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But this 
noble lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers 
by her own example ; went from post to post like a great gen¬ 
eral ; even mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from 
the castle by a bye-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to 
the tents, and threw the whole force into disorder. This done, 
she got safely back to Hennebon again, and was received with 
loud shouts of joy by the defenders of the castle, who had given 
her up for lost. As they were now very short of provisions, 
however, and as they could not dine off enthusiasm, and as the 
old bishop was always saying, u I told you what it would come 
to ! ” they began to lose heart, and to talk of yielding the castle 
up. The brave countess retiring to an upper room, and look¬ 
ing with great grief out to sea, where she expected relief from 
England, saw, at this very time, the English ships in the distance, 
and was relieved and rescued. Sir Walter Manning, the Eng¬ 
lish commander, so admired her courage that, being come into 
the castle with the English knights, and having made a feast 
there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat them 
off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the 
castle with great joy ; and the countess, who had watched them 
from a high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed 
them every one. 

This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea 
fight with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to 
England to ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused another 
lady, the wife of another French lord (whom the French king 
very barbarously murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. 
The time was fast coming, however, when Edward, Prince of 
Wales, was to be the great star of this French and English war. 



THE BATTLEFIELD OF CRECY 

















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


157 


It was in tlie month of July, 1346, when the king embarked 
at Southampton for France, with an army of about thirty thou¬ 
sand men in all, attended by the Prince of Wales and by several 
of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in Normandy; 
and burning and destroying as he went, according to custom, 
advanced up the left bank of the river Seine, and fired the 
small towns, even close to Paris; but being watched from the 
right bank of the river by the French king and all his army, it 
came to this at last that Edward found himself, on Saturday, 
the twenty-sixth of August, 1346, on a rising ground, behind 
the little French village of Cre'cy, face to face with the French 
king’s force. And although the French king had an enormous 
army, — in number more than eight times his, — he there 
resolved to beat him or be beaten. 

The young prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the 
Earl of Warwick, led the first division of the English army; 
two other great earls led the second; and*'the king the third. 
When the morning dawned, the king received the sacrament and 
heard prayers, and then, mounted on horseback with a white 
wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and rank to 
rank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. Then 
the whole army breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground 
where he had stood; and then they remained quietly on the 
ground with their weapons ready. 

Up came the French king with all his great force. It was 
dark and angry weather ; there was an eclipse of the sun; there 
was a thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the 
frightened birds flew screaming above the soldiers’ heads. A 
certain captain in the French army advised the French king, 
who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battle until the 
morrow. The king, taking this advice, gave the word to halt. 
But those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be fore¬ 
most with the rest, came pressing on. The roads for a great 
distance were covered with this immense army, and with the 
common people from the villages, who were flourishing their 
rude weapons, and making a great noise. Owing to these cir¬ 
cumstances, the French army advanced in the greatest confu¬ 
sion ; every French lord doing what he liked with his own men, 
and putting out the men of every other French lord. 

Now their king relied strongly upon a great body of cross¬ 
bowmen from Genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin 


158 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the battle on finding that he could not stop it. They shouted 
once, they shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the 
English archers; but the English would have heard them shout 
three thousand times and would have never moved. At last 
the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge 
their bolts, upon which the English let fly such a hail of 
arrows that the Genoese speedily made off; for their cross-bows, 
besides being heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a 
handle, and consequently took time to reload; the English, on 
the other hand, could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the 
arrows could fly. 

When the French king saw the Genoese turning, he cried 
out to his men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm 
instead of service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile 
the English archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot 
down great numbers of the French soldiers and knights, whom 
certain sly Cornishmtm and Welshmen, from the English army, 
creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives. 

The prince and his division w r ere at this time so hard pressed 
that the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the king, who was 
overlooking the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send 
more aid. 

“ Is my son killed ? ” said the king. 

“ No, sire, please God ! ” returned the messenger. 

“ Is he wounded ? ” said the king. 

“ No, sire.” 

“ Is he thrown to the ground ?” said the king. 

“ No, sire, not so; but he is very hard pressed.” 

“Then,” said the king, “go back to those who sent you, and 
tell them I shall send no aid; because I set my heart upon my 
son proving himself this day a brave knight, and because I am 
resolved, please God! that the honour of a victory shall be 
his.” 

These bold words, being reported to the prince and his divi¬ 
sion, so raised their spirits that they fought better than ever. 
The king of France charged gallantly with his men many times; 
but it was of no use. Night closing in, his horse w T as killed 
under him by an English arrow ; and the knights and nobles, 
who had clustered thick about him early in the day, were now 
completely scattered. At last, some of his few remaining fol¬ 
lowers led him ofl the field by force, since he would not retire 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


159 


of himself ; and they journeyed away to Amiens. The victo¬ 
rious English, lighting their watch-fires, made merry on the 
field; and the king, riding to meet his gallant son, took him in 
his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had acted nobly, and 
proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown. While it 
was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the great vic¬ 
tory he had gained ; but next day it was discovered that eleven 
princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common 
men lay dead upon the French side. Among these was the 
King of Bohemia, an old blind man ; who, having been told 
that his son was wounded in the battle, and that no force could 
stand against the Black Prince, called to him two knights, put 
himself on horseback between them, fastened the three bridles 
together, and dashed in among the English, where he was pres¬ 
ently slain. He bore as his crest three white ostrich feathers, 
with the motto, Ich dien , signifying, in English, “ I serve.” 
This crest and motto were taken by the Prince of Wales in 
remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by the 
Prince of Wales ever since. 

Five days after this great battle, the king laid siege to Calais. 
This siege — ever afterwards memorable — lasted nearly a year. 
In order to starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so ma,ny 
wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops that it is said their 
quarters looked like a second Calais suddenly sprung up around 
the first. Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove 
out what he called the useless mouths, to the number of seven¬ 
teen hundred persons, men and women, young and old. King 
Edward allowed them to pass through his lines, and even fed 
them, and dismissed them with money ; but later in the siege 
he was not so merciful, — five hundred more, who were after¬ 
wards driven out, dying of starvation and misery. The garrison 
were so hard pressed at last that they sent a letter to King 
Philip, telling him that they had eaten all the horses, all the 
dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be found in the 
place ; and that, if he did not relieve them, they must either 
surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made one 
effort to give them relief ; but they were so hemmed in by the 
English power that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave 
the place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surren¬ 
dered to King Edward. “ Tell your general,” said he to the 
humble messengers who came out of the town, “ that I require 


160 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


to have sent here six of the most distinguished citizens, bare¬ 
legged and in their shirts, with ropes about their necks ; and 
let those six men bring with them the keys of the castle and 
the town.” 

When the governor of Calais related this to the people in 
the market-place, there was great weeping and distress, in the 
midst of which, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de St. 
Pierre, rose up and said, that, if the six men required were not 
sacrificed, the whole population would he, therefore he offered 
himself as the first. Encouraged by this bright example, five 
other worthy citizens rose up, one after another, and offered 
themselves to save the rest. The governor, who was too badly 
wounded to he able to walk, mounted a poor old horse that had 
not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the gate, while 
all the people cried and mourned. 

Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of 
the whole six to he struck off. However, the good queen fell 
upon her knees, and besought the king to give them up to her. 
The king replied, “ I wish you had been somewhere else; but 
I cannot refuse you.” So she had them properly dressed, made 
a feast for them, and sent them hack with a handsome present, 
to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. I hope the people of 
Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soon after¬ 
wards, for her gentle mother’s sake. 

Now came that terrible disease, the plague, into Europe, hur¬ 
rying from the heart of China, and killed the wretched people 
— especially the poor — in such enormous numbers that one- 
half of the inhabitants of England are related to have died of it. 
It killed the cattle in great numbers too ; and so few working¬ 
men remained alive that there were not enough left to till the 
ground. 

After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of 
Wales again invaded Prance with an army of sixty thousand 
men. He went through the south of the country, burning and 
plundering wheresoever he went; while his father, who had 
still the Scottish war upon his hands, did the like in Scotland, 
hut was harassed and worried in his retreat from that country 
by the Scottish men, who repaid his cruelties with interest. 

The French king, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded 
by his son John. The Black Prince, called by that name from 
the colour of the armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


161 


continuing to burn and destroy in Prance, roused John into deter¬ 
mined opposition ; and so cruel had the Black Prince been in 
his campaign, and so severely had the French peasants suffered, 
that he could not find one who, for love, or money, or the fear 
of death, would tell him what the French king was doing, or 
where he was. Thus it happened that he came upon the French 
king’s forces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poictiers, and 
found that the whole neighbouring country was occupied by a 
vast French army. “ God help us ! ” said the Black Prince ; 
“ we must make the best of it.” 

So on a Sunday morning, the 18th of September, the prince, 
whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all, pre¬ 
pared to give battle to the French king, who had sixty thousand 
horse alone. While he was so engaged, there came riding from 
the French camp a cardinal, who had persuaded John to let 
him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of Christian 
blood. “ Save my honour,” said the prince to this good priest, 
“ and save the honour of my army, and I will make any reason¬ 
able terms.” He offered to give up all the towns, castles, and 
prisoners he had taken, and to swear to make no war in France 
for seven years ; but as John would hear of nothing but his 
surrender, with a hundred of his chief knights, the treaty was 
broken off, and the prince said quietly, “ God defend the right; 
we shall fight to-morrow ! ” 

Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two 
armies prepared for battle. The English were posted in a 
strong place, which could only be approached by one narrow 
lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. The French attacked 
them by this lane, but were so galled and slain by English 
arrows from behind the hedge that they were forced to retreat. 
Then went six hundred English bowmen round about, and, com¬ 
ing upon the rear of the French army, rained arrows on them 
thick and fast. The French knights, thrown into confusion, quit¬ 
ted their banners, and dispersed in all directions. Said Sir John 
Chandos to the prince, “ Bide forward, noble prince, and the day 
is yours. The King of France is so valiant a gentleman that 
I know he will never fly, and may be taken prisoner.” Said the 
prince to this, u Advance, English banners, in the name of God 
and St. George ! ” and on they pressed until they came up with 
the French king, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and when 
all his nobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last by 


162 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


liis youngest son Philip, only sixteen years of age. Father and 
son fought well; and the king had already two wounds in his 
face, and had been beaten down, -when he at last delivered him¬ 
self to a banished French knight, and gave him his right-hand 
glove in token that he had done so. 

The Black Prince was generous as well as brave ; and he 
invited his royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon 
him at table, and, when they afterwards rode into London in a 
gorgeous procession, mounted the French king on a fine cream- 
coloured horse, and rode at his side on a little pony. This was 
all very kind; but I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical 
too, and has been made more meritorious than it deserved to be, 
especially as I am inclined to think that the greatest kindness 
to the king of France would have been not to have shown him 
to the people at all. However, it must be said for these acts 
of politeness that, in course of time, they did much to soften 
the horrors of war and the passions of conquerors. It was a 
long, long time before the common soldiers began to have the 
benefit of such courtly deeds; but they did at last; and thus 
it is possible that a poor soldier who asked for quarter at the 
battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight, may have 
owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince. 

At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace 
called the Savoy, which was given up to the captive king of 
France and his son for their residence. As the king of Scot¬ 
land had now been King Edward’s captive for eleven years, too, 
his success was at this time tolerably complete. The Scottish 
business was settled by the prisoner being released under the 
title of Sir David, king of Scotland, and by his engaging to pay 
a large ransom. The state of France encouraged England to 
propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose 
against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; 
where the nobles rose and turned against the people ; where the 
most frightful outrages were committed on all sides; and where 
the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of the 
Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common Christian name among the 
country people of France, awakened terrors and hatreds that have 
scarcely yet passed away. A treaty, called the Great Peace, was 
at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up the 
greater part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six 
years, a ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


163 


beset by his own nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these 
conditions — though they could help him to no better — that 
he came back of his own will to his old palace-prison of the 
Savoy, and there died. 

There was a sovereign of Castile at that time called Pedro 
the Cruel, who deserved the name remarkably well, having 
committed, among other cruelties, a variety of murders. This 
amiable monarch, being driven from his throne for his crimes, 
went to the' province of Bordeaux, where the Black Prince — 
now married to his cousin Joan, a pretty widow — was residing, 
and besought his help. The prince, who took to him much more 
kindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to such 
a ruffian, readily listened to his fair promises, and, agreeing to 
help him, sent secret orders to some troublesome disbanded 
soldiers of his and his father’s who called themselves the Free 
Companions, and who had been a pest to the French people for 
some time, to aid this Pedro. The prince himself, going into 
Spain to head the army of relief, soon set Pedro on his throne 
again, — where he no sooner found himself than, of course, he 
behaved like the villain he was, broke his word without the 
least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made to 
the Black Prince. 

Now, it had cost the prince a good deal of money to pay 
soldiers to support this murderous king; and finding himself, 
when he came back disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad 
health, but deeply in debt, he began to tax his French subjects 
to pay his creditors. They appealed to the French king, 
Charles ; war again broke out; and the French town of Limoges, 
which the prince had greatly benefited, went over to the French 
king. Upon this he ravaged the province of which it was the 
capital ; burnt and plundered and killed in the old sickening 
way ; and refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women, and 
children, taken in the offending town, though he was so ill 
and so much in need of pity himself from Heaven that he was 
carried in a litter. He lived to come home, and make himself 
popular with the people and Parliament, and he died on Trinity 
Sunday, the eighth of June, 1376, at forty-six years old. 

The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most re¬ 
nowned and beloved princes it had ever had; and he was buried 
with great lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. Near to the 
tomb of Edward the Confessor, his monument, with his figure, 


164 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


carved in stone, and represented in the old black armour, lying 
on its back, may be seen at this day, with an ancient coat of 
mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam 
above it, which most people like to believe were once worn by 
the Black Prince. 

King Edward did not outlive his renowned son long. He 
was old ; and one Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived 
to make him so fond of her in his old age that he could refuse 
her nothing, and made himself ridiculous. She little deserved 
his love, or — what I dare say she valued a great deal more — 
the jewels of the late queen, which he gave her among other 
rich presents. She took the very ring from his finger on the 
morning of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged 
by his faithless servants. Only one good priest was true to him, 
and attended him to the last. 

Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, 
the reign of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable in 
better ways, by the growth of architecture and the erection of 
Windsor Castle. In better ways still, by the rising up of 
Wickliffe, originally a poor parish priest, who devoted himself 
to exposing, with wonderful power and success, the ambition 
and corruption of the Pope, and of the whole church of which 
he was the head. 

Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in 
this reign, too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better 
w y oollen cloths than the English had ever had before. The 
Order of the Garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly so 
important as good clothes for the nation) also dates from this 
period. The king is said to have picked up a lady’s garter at 
a ball, and to have said, Honi soit qui mal y pense ; in Eng¬ 
lish, “ Evil be to him who evil thinks of it.” The courtiers 
w r ere usually glad to imitate w T hat the king said or did, and 
hence from a slight incident the Order of the Garter was insti¬ 
tuted and became a great dignity. So the story goes. 



WINDSOR CASTLE 













A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


165 


CHAPTER XIX 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND 

Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age, 
succeeded to the crown, under the title of King Richard the 
Second. The whole English nation were ready to admire him 
for the sake of his brave father. As to the lords and ladies 
about the court, they declared him to be the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best, even of princes, whom the lords and ladies 
about the court generally declare to be the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this 
base manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever 
good was in him ; and it brought him to anything but a good 
or happy end. 

The Duke of Lancaster, the young king’s uncle, — commonly 
called John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which 
the common people so pronounced, — was supposed to have 
some thoughts of the throne himself; but as he was not popular, 
and the memory of the Black Prince was, he submitted to his 
nephew. 

The war with France being still unsettled, the government of 
England wanted money to provide for the expenses that might 
arise out of it; accordingly a certain tax, called the poll-tax, 
which had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be levied 
on the people. This was a tax on every person in the king¬ 
dom, male and female, above the age of fourteen, of three groats 
(or three fourpenny pieces) a year; clergymen were charged 
more, and only beggars were exempt. 

I have no need to repeat that the common people of England 
had long been suffering under great oppression. They were 
still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on which they 
lived, and were on most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. 
But they had begun by this time to think very seriously of not 
bearing quite so much; and probably were emboldened by that 
French insurrection I mentioned in the last chapter. 

The people of Essex rose against the poll-tax, and, being 


i 


166 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

severely handled by the government officers, killed some of 
them. At this very time one of the tax-collectors, going his 
rounds from house to house, at Dartford in Kent came to the 
cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed the tax upon 
his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, declared that she 
was under the age of fourteen ; upon that, the collector (as 
other collectors had already done in different parts of England) 
behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted Wat Tyler’s 
daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother screamed. Wat 
the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the spot, and did 
what any honest father under such provocation might have 
done, — struck the collector dead at a blow. 

Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They 
made Wat Tyler their leader ; they joined with the people of 
Essex, who were in arms under a priest called Jack Straw; 
they took out of prison another priest named John Ball; and, 
gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced, in a great 
confused army of poor men, to Blackheatli. It is said that they 
wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men equal. I 
do not think this very likely ; because they stopped the travel¬ 
lers on the roads, and made them swear to be true to King 
Bichard and the people. Nor were they at all disposed to in¬ 
jure those who had done them no harm, merely because they 
were of high station; for the king’s mother, who had to pass 
through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to her young 
son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, had merely to 
kiss a few dirty-faced, rough-bearded men who were noisily fond 
of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety. Next day the 
whole mass marched on to London Bridge. 

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William Wal¬ 
worth, the mayor, caused to be raised to prevent their coming 
into the city, but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it 
again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. 
They broke open the prisons; they burned the papers in Lam¬ 
beth Palace, they destroyed the Duke of Lancaster’s palace, the 
Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the most beautiful and splendid 
in England; they set fire to the books and documents in the 
Temple, and made a great riot. Many of these outrages were 
committed in drunkenness, since those citizens who had well- 
filled cellars were only too glad to throw them open to save the 
rest of their property; but even the drunken rioters were very 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


167 


careful to steal nothing. They were so angry with one man, 
who was seen to take a silver cup at the Savoy Palace, and put it 
in his breast, that they drowned him in the river, cup and all. 

The young king had been taken out to treat with them before 
they committed these excesses; but he and the people about 
him were so frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back 
to the Tower in the best way they could. This made the insur¬ 
gents holder ; so they went on rioting away, striking off the 
heads of those who did not, at a moment’s notice, declare for 
King Richard and the people; and killing as many of the un¬ 
popular persons whom they supposed to be their enemies as 
they could by any means lay hold of. In this manner they 
passed one very violent day, and then proclamation was made 
that the king would meet them at Mile End, and grant their 
request. 

The rioters went to Mile End to the number of sixtv thou- 
sand, and the king met them there; and to the king the rioters 
peaceably proposed four conditions. First, that neither they, 
nor their children, nor any coming after them, should be made 
slaves any more. Secondly, that the rent of land should he 
fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being paid in ser¬ 
vice. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy and sell in 
all markets and public places, like other free men. Fourthly, 
that they should be pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows 
there was nothing very unreasonable in these proposals ! The 
young king deceitfully pretended to think so, and kept thirty 
clerks up all night writing out a charter accordingly. 

Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted 
the entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile 
End with the rest; hut while that meeting was being held, 
broke into the Tower of London, and slew the archbishop and 
the treasurer, for whose heads the people had cried out loudly the 
day before. He and his men even thrust their swords into the 
bed of the Princess of Wales, while the princess was in it, to 
make certain that none of their enemies were concealed there. 

So Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about 
the city. Next morning, the king with a small train of some 
sixty gentlemen — among whom was Walworth, the mayor — 
rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people at a little 
distance. Says Wat to his men, “ There is the king. I will 
go speak with him, and tell him what we want.” 


168 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. 
“ King,” says Wat, “ dost thou see all my men there ? ” 

u Ah ! ” says the king. “ Why ? ” 

u Because,” says Wat, “ they are all at my command, and 
have sworn to do whatever I bid them.” 

Some declared afterwards that, as Wat said this, he laid his 
hand on the king’s bridle. Others declared that he was seen to 
play with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke 
to the king like a rough, angry man, as he was, and did nothing 
more. At any rate, he was expecting no attack, and preparing 
for no resistance, when Walworth, the mayor, did the not very 
valiant deed of drawing a short sword, and stabbing him in the 
throat. He dropped from his horse, and one of the king’s peo¬ 
ple speedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and 
flatterers made a mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which 
will occasionally find an echo to this day. But Wat was a 
hard-working man, who had suffered much, and had been foully 
outraged ; and it is probable that he was a man of much higher 
nature and a much braver spirit than any of the parasites who 
exulted then, or have exulted since, over his defeat. 

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to 
avenge his fall. If the young king had not had presence of 
mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the mayor to boot 
might have followed Tyler pretty fast. But the king, riding 
up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and that he 
would be their leader. They were so taken by surprise that 
they set up a great shouting, and followed the boy until he was 
met at Islington by a large body of soldiers. 

The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as 
the king found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and 
undid all he had done; some fifteen hundred of the rioters 
were tried (mostly in Essex), with great rigour, and executed 
with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged on gibbets, and 
left there as a terror to the country people; and because their 
miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, the 
king ordered the rest to be chained up, — which was the begin¬ 
ning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. The 
king’s falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful figure, 
that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond comparison 
the truer and more respectable man of the two. 

Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND 169 

Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called “ the good 
Queen Anne.” She deserved a better husband; for the king 
had been fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, 
dissolute, had young man. 

There were two popes at this time (as if one were not 
enough!), and their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal of 
trouble. Scotland was still troublesome too; and at home 
there was much jealousy and distrust, and plotting and counter¬ 
plotting, because the king feared the ambition of his relations, 
and particularly of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster; and the 
duke had his party against the king, and the king had his party 
against the duke. Nor were these home troubles lessened when 
the duke went to Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that 
kingdom ; for then the Duke of Gloucester, another of Bicliard’s 
uncles, opposed him, and influenced the Parliament to demand 
the dismissal of the king’s favourite ministers. The king said, 
in reply, that he would not for such men dismiss the meanest 
servant in his kitchen. But it had begun to signify little what 
a king said when a Parliament was determined ; so Bichard was 
at last obliged to give way, and to agree to another government 
of the kingdom, under a commission of fourteen nobles, for.a 
year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the head of this commis¬ 
sion, and in fact appointed everybody composing it. 

Having done all this, the king declared, as soon as he saw an 
opportunity, that he had never meant to do it, and that it was 
all illegal; and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration 
to that effect. The secret oozed out directly, and was carried 
to the Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester, at the 
head of forty thousand men, met the king on his entering into 
London to enforce his authority; the king was helpless against 
him; his favourites and ministers were impeached and were 
mercilessly executed. Among them were two men whom the 
people regarded with very different feelings, — one, Bobert 
Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was hated for having made what 
was called “ the bloody circuit ” to try the rioters ; the other, 
Sir Simon Burley, an honourable knight, who had been the 
dear friend of the Black Prince, and the governor and guardian 
of the king. For this gentleman’s life the good queen even 
begged of Gloucester on her knees; but Gloucester (with or 
without reason) feared and hated him, and replied that if she 
valued her husband’s crown she had better beg no more. All 


170 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


this was done under what was called by some the wonderful 
— and by others, with better reason, the merciless — Par¬ 
liament. 

But Gloucester’s power was not to last for ever. He held 
it for only a year longer; in which year the famous battle of 
Otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was fought. 
When the year was out, the king, turning suddenly to Glouces¬ 
ter, in the midst of a great council, said, “ Uncle, how old am 
I ? ” — “ Your highness,” returned the duke, “ is in your twenty- 
second year.” — “Am I so much?” said the king; “then I 
will manage my own affairs! I am much obliged to you, my 
good lords, for your past services, but I need them no more.” 
He followed this up by appointing a new chancellor and a new 
treasurer, and announced to the people that he had resumed the 
government. He held it for eight years without opposition. 
Through all that time, he kept his determination to revenge 
himself some day upon his uncle Gloucester in his own breast. 

At last the good queen died; and then the king, desiring to 
take a second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry 
Isabella of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth, who, the 
French courtiers said (as the English courtiers had said of 
Bichard), was a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phenome¬ 
non, — of seven years old. The council was divided about this 
marriage, but it took place. It secured peace between England 
and France for a quarter of a century; but it was strongly 
opposed to the prejudices of the English people. The Duke of 
Gloucester, who was anxious to take the occasion of making 
himself popular, declaimed against it loudly; and this at length 
decided the king to execute the vengeance he had been nursing 
so long. 

He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester’s 
house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the duke, suspecting 
nothing, came out into the courtyard to receive his royal vis¬ 
itor. While the king conversed in a friendly manner with the 
duchess, the duke was quietly seized, hurried away, shipped 
for Calais, and lodged in the castle there. His friends, the 
earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in the same treach¬ 
erous manner, and confined to their castles. A few days after, 
at Nottingham, they were impeached for high treason. The 
Earl of Arundel was condemned and beheaded, and the Earl of 
Warwick was banished. Then a writ was sent by a messenger 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


171 


to the governor of Calais, requiring him to send the Duke of 
Gloucester over to be tried. In three days, he returned an 
answer that he could not do that, because the Duke of Glouces¬ 
ter had died in prison. The duke was declared a traitor, his 
property was confiscated to the king, a real or pretended confes¬ 
sion he had made in prison to one of the justices of the common 
pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of the 
matter. How the unfortunate duke died verv few cared to 
know. Whether he really died naturally, whether he killed 
himself, whether by the king’s order he was strangled, or smoth¬ 
ered between two beds (as a serving-man of the governor’s, named 
Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be discovered. There is 
not much doubt that he was killed, somehow or other, by his 
nephew’s orders. Among the most active nobles in these pro¬ 
ceedings were the king’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, whom the 
king had made Duke of Hereford to smooth down the old 
family quarrels, and some others, who had in the family plot- 
ting-times done just such acts themselves as they now con¬ 
demned in the duke. They seem to have been a corrupt set of 
men ; but such men were easily found about the court in such 
days. 

The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore 
about the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the 
king cared for law, and how crafty he* was, and began to be some¬ 
what afraid of themselves. The king’s life was a life of con¬ 
tinued feasting and excess; his retinue, down to the meanest 
servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, and caroused 
at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten thousand every 
day. He himself, surrounded by a body of ten thousand arch¬ 
ers, and enriched by a duty on wool, which the Commons had 
granted him for life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than 
powerful and absolute, and was as fierce and haughty as a king 
could be. 

He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the 
dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than 
the others, he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he got 
him to declare, before the Council, that the Duke of Norfolk 
had lately held some treasonable talk with him as he was riding 
near Brentford; and that he had told him, among other things, 
that he could not believe the king’s oath, — which nobody could, 
I should think. For this treachery he obtained a pardon, and the 


172 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Duke of Norfolk was summoned to appear and defend himself. 
As he denied the charge, and said his accuser was a liar and a 
traitor, both noblemen, according to the manner of those times, 
were held in custody, and the truth was ordered to be decided 
by wager of battle at Coventry. This wager of battle meant 
that whosoever won the combat was to be considered in the 
right; which nonsense meant, in effect, that no strong man 
could ever be wrong. A great holiday was made; a great 
crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the two 
combatants were about to rush at each other with their lances, 
when the king, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down 
the truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. 
The Duke of Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the 
Duke of Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the king. 
The Duke of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. 
The Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart. 

Faster and fiercer, after this, the king went on in his career. 
The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of 
Hereford, died soon after the departure of his son ; and the king, 
although he had solemnly granted to that son leave to inherit 
his father’s property, if it should come to him during his ban¬ 
ishment, immediately seized it all, like a robber. The judges 
were so afraid of him, that they disgraced themselves by declar¬ 
ing this theft to be just and lawful. His avarice knew no 
bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivo¬ 
lous pretence, merely to raise money by way of fines for miscon¬ 
duct. In short, he did as many dishonest things as he could; 
and cared so little for the discontent of his subjects — though 
even the spaniel favourites began to whisper to him that there 
was such a thing as discontent afloat — that he took that time, 
of all others, for leaving England, and making an expedition 
against the Irish. 

He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York regent in 
his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came over 
from France to claim the rights of which he had been so mon¬ 
strously deprived. He was immediately joined by the two 
great earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; and his 
uncle, the regent, finding the king’s cause unpopular, and the 
disinclination of the army to act against Henry very strong, with¬ 
drew with the royal forces towards Bristol. Henry, at the head 



TOWER OF LONDON 




























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


173 


of an army, came from Yorkshire (where he had landed) to 
London, and followed him. They joined their forces, — how 
they brought that about is not distinctly understood, — and pro¬ 
ceeded to Bristol Castle, whither three noblemen had taken the 
young queen. The castle surrendering, they presently put those 
three noblemen to death. The regent then remained there, and 
Henry went on to Chester. 

All this time the boisterous weather had prevented the king 
from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At length it 
was conveyed to him in Ireland; and he sent over the Earl of 
Salisbury, who, landing at Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and 
waited for the king a whole fortnight; at the end of that time 
the Welshmen, who were perhaps not very warm for him in the 
beginning, quite cooled down, and went home. When the king 
did land on the coast at last, he came with a pretty good power; 
but his men cared nothing for him and quickly deserted. Sup¬ 
posing the Welshmen to be still at Conway, he disguised him¬ 
self as a priest, and made for that place in company with his 
two brothers and some few of their adherents. But there were 
no Welshmen left, — only Salisbury and a hundred soldiers. 
In this distress, the king’s two brothers, Exeter and Surrey, 
offered to go to Henry to learn what his intentions were. Sur¬ 
rey, who was true to Bichard, was put into prison. Exeter, 
who was false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his 
shield, and assumed the rose, the badge of Henry. After this 
it was pretty plain to the king what Henry’s intentions were, 
without sending any more messengers to ask. 

The fallen king, thus deserted, hemmed in on all sides and 
pressed with hunger, rode here and rode there, and went to this 
castle and went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some 
provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to 
Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl of Northum¬ 
berland, who came from Henry, in reality to take him prisoner, 
but in appearance to offer terms, and whose men were hidden 
not far off. By this earl he was conducted to the castle of 
Flint, where his cousin Henry met him, and dropped on his 
knee as if he were still respectful to his sovereign. 

“ Fair cousin of Lancaster,” said the king, “ you are very 
welcome ” (very welcome, no doubt; but he would have been 
more so in chains, or without a head). 

“ My lord,” replied Henry, “ I am come a little before my 


174 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


time; but, with your good pleasure, I will show you the reason. 
Your people complain, with some bitterness, that you have ruled 
them rigorously for two-and-twenty years. Now, if it please 
God, I will help you to govern them better in future.” 

u Fair cousin,” replied the abject king, “ since it pleaseth 
you, it pleaseth me mightily.” 

After this, the trumpets sounded, and the king was stuck on 
a wretched horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he was 
made to issue a proclamation calling a Parliament. From Ches¬ 
ter he was taken on towards London. At Litchfield he tried to 
escape by getting out of a window, and letting himself down 
into a garden; it was all in vain, however; and he was carried 
on and shut up in the Tower, where no one pitied him, and 
where the whole people, whose patience he had quite tired out, 
reproached him without mercy. Before he got there, it is 
related that his very dog left him, and departed from his side 
to lick the hand of Henry. 

The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to this 
wretched king, and told him that he had promised the Earl of 
Northumberland, at Conway Castle, to resign the crown. He 
said he was quite ready to do it, and signed a paper in which 
he renounced his authority, and absolved his people from their 
allegiance to him. He had so little spirit left that he gave his 
royal ring to his triumphant cousin Henry with his own hand, 
and said, that if he could have had leave to appoint a successor 
that same Henry was the man of all others whom he would 
have named. Next day the Parliament assembled in West¬ 
minster Hall, where Henry sat at the side of the throne, which 
was empty, and covered with a cloth of gold. The paper just 
signed by the king was read to the multitude amid shouts of joy, 
which were echoed through all the streets; when some of the 
noise had died away, the king was formally deposed. Then 
Henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead 
and breast, challenged the realm of England as his right — the 
archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on the throne. 

The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed 
throughout all the streets. No one remembered now that 
Bichard the Second had ever been the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best of princes; and he now made, living (to my 
thinking), a far more sorry spectacle in the Tower of London 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 175 

than Wat Tyler had made, lying dead, among the hoofs of the 
royal horses in Smithfield. 

The poll-tax died with Wat. The smiths to the king and 
royal family could make no chains in which the king could hang 
the people’s recollection of him; so the poll-tax was never 
collected. 


176 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER XX 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE 

During the last reign, the preaching of Wickliffe against 
the pride and cunning of the Pope, and all his men, had made 
a great noise in England. Whether the new king wished to be 
in favour with the priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending 
to be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself into the belief that 
he was not a usurper, I don’t know. Both suppositions are 
likely enough. It is certain that he began his reign by making 
a strong show against the followers of Wickliffe, who were 
called Lollards, or heretics, — although his father, John of 
Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as he himself had 
been more than suspected of being. It is no less certain that 
he first established in England the detestable and atrocious 
custom, brought from abroad, of burning those people as a 
punishment for their opinions. It was the importation into 
England of one of the practices of what was called the Holy 
Inquisition; which was the most imholy and the most infamous 
tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men more like 
demons than followers of our Saviour. 

Xo real right to the crown, as you know, was in this king. 
Edward Mortimer, the young Earl of March, — who was only 
eight or nine years old, and who was descended from the Duke 
of Clarence, the elder brother of Henry’s father, — was by suc¬ 
cession the real heir to the throne. However, the king got his 
son declared Prince of Wales ; and, obtaining possession of the 
young Earl of March and his little brother, kept them in 
confinement (but not severely) in Windsor Castle. He then 
required the Parliament to decide what was to be done with the 
deposed king, who was quiet enough, and who only said that he 
hoped his cousin Henry would be “a good lord” to him. The 
Parliament replied that they would recommend his being kept 
in some secret place, where the people could not resort, and 
where his friends could be admitted to see him. Henry accord- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


177 


ingly passed this sentence upon him; and it now began to he 
pretty clear to the nation that Richard the Second would not 
live very long. 

It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an unprincipled one; 
and the lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to 
which of them had been loyal and which disloyal, and which 
consistent and which inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said 
to have been thrown upon the floor at one time as challenges to 
as many battles; the truth being, that they were all false and 
base together, and had been at one time with the old king, and 
at another time with the new one, and seldom true for any 
length of time to any one. They soon began to plot again. A 
conspiracy was formed to invite the king to a tournament at 
Oxford, and then to take him by surprise and kill him. This 
murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon at secret meetings 
in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, was betrayed by the 
Earl of Rutland, one of the conspirators. The king, instead of 
going to the tournament, or staying at Windsor (where the 
conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves discovered, 
with the hope of seizing him), retired to London, proclaimed 
them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a great force. 
They retired into the west of England, proclaiming Richard 
king ; but the people rose against them, and they were all slain. 
Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. 
Whether he was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was 
starved to death, or whether he refused food on hearing of his 
brothers being killed (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. 
He met his death somehow; and his body was publicly shown 
at St. Paul’s Cathedral with only the lower part of the face 
uncovered. I can scarcely doubt that he was killed by the 
king’s orders. 

The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only ten 
years old ; and when her father, Charles of France, heard of 
her misfortunes and of her lonely condition in England, he 
went mad, as he had several times done before during the last 
five or six years. The French dukes of Burgundy and Bour¬ 
bon took up the poor girl’s cause, without caring much about 
it, but on the chance of getting something out of England. 
The people of Bordeaux, who had a sort of superstitious attach¬ 
ment to the memory of Richard, because he was born there, 
swore by the Lord that he had been the best man in all his 


178 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


kingdom, — which was going rather far, — and promised to do 
great things against the English. Nevertheless, when they 
came to consider that they and the whole people of France were 
ruined by their own nobles, and that the English rule was 
much the better of the two, they cooled down again; and the 
two dukes, although they were very great men, could do nothing 
without them. Then began negotiations between France and 
England for the sending home to Paris of the poor little 
queen, with all her jewels, and her fortune of two hundred 
thousand francs in gold. The king was quite willing to restore 
the young lady, and even the jewels ; but he said he really 
could not part with the money. So at last she was safely de¬ 
posited at Paris without her fortune ; and then the Duke of 
Burgundy (who was cousin to the French king) began to quar¬ 
rel with the Duke of Orleans (who was brother to the French 
king) about the whole matter; and those two dukes made 
France even more wretched than ever. 

As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at home, 
the king marched to the Biver Tyne, and demanded homage of 
the king of that country. This being refused, he advanced to 
Edinburgh, but did little there; for his army being in want 
of provisions, and the Scotch being very careful to hold him in 
check without giving battle, he was obliged to retire. It is to 
his immortal honour, that in this sally he burnt no villages and 
slaughtered no people, but was particularly careful that his 
army should be merciful and harmless. It was a great example 
in those ruthless times. 

A war among the Border people of England and Scotland 
went on for twelve months; and then the Earl of Northumber¬ 
land, the nobleman who had helped Henry to the crown, began 
to rebel against him, probably because nothing that Henry 
could do for him would satisfy his extravagant expectations. 
There was a certain Welsh gentleman, named Owen Glendower, 
who had been a student in one of the inns of court, and had 
afterwards been in the service of the late king, whose Welsh 
property Avas taken from him by a powerful lord related to the 
present king, Avho was his neighbour. Appealing for redress, 
and getting none, he took up arms, Avas made an outlaAV, and 
declared himself sovereign of Wales. He pretended to be a 
magician; and not only were the Welsh people stupid enough 
to believe him, but even Henry believed him too; for, making 





SHREWSBURY BATTLEFIELD 











A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 179 

three expeditions into Wales, and being three times driven hack 
by the wildness of the country, the bad weather, and the skill 
of Glendower, he thought he was defeated by the Welshman’s 
magic arts. However, he took Lord Grey and Sir Edmund 
Mortimer prisoners, and allowed the relatives of Lord Grey to 
ransom him, hut would not extend such favour to Sir Edmund 
Mortimer. How, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, son of the 
Earl of Northumberland, who was married to Mortimer’s sister, 
is supposed to have taken offence at this ; and therefore, in 
conjunction with his father and some others, to have joined 
Owen Glendower, and risen against Henry. It is by no means 
clear that this was the real cause of the conspiracy ; but perhaps 
it was made the pretext. It was formed, and was very power¬ 
ful, including Scroop, Archbishop of York, and the Earl of 
Douglas, a powerful and brave Scottish nobleman. The king 
was prompt and active, and the two armies met at Shrewsbury. 

There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old 
Earl of Northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by 
his son. The king wore plain armour to deceive the enemy ; 
and four noblemen, with the same object, wore the royal arms. 
The rebel charge was so furious that every one of those gentle¬ 
men was killed, the royal standard was beaten down, and the 
young Prince of Wales was severely wounded in the face. But 
he was one of the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived ; 
and he fought so well, and the king’s troops were so encouraged 
by his bold example, that they rallied immediately and cut the 
enemy’s forces all to pieces. Hotspur was killed by an arrow 
in the brain ; and the route was so complete that the whole 
rebellion was struck down by this one blow. The Earl of 
Northumberland surrendered himself soon after hearing of the 
death of his son, and received a pardon for all his offences. 

There were some lingerings of rebellion yet; Owen Glen¬ 
dower being retired to Wales, and a preposterous story being 
spread among the ignorant people that King Bichard was still 
alive. How they could have believed such nonsense it is 
difficult to imagine ; but they certainly did suppose that the 
court fool of the late king, who was something like him, was 
he himself; so that it seemed as if, after giving so much 
trouble to the country in his life, he was still to trouble it 
after his death. This was not the worst. The young Earl of 
March and his brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle. 


180 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited away by 
one Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl of 
Rutland who was in the former conspiracy and was now Duke 
of York, of being in the plot. Eor this he was ruined in 
fortune, though not put to death ; and then another plot arose 
among the old Earl of Northumberland, some other lords, and 
that same Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was with the rebels 
before. These conspirators caused a writing to be posted on 
the church doors, accusing the king of a variety of crimes; but 
the king being eager and vigilant to oppose them, they were all 
taken, and the archbishop was executed. This was the first time 
that a great churchman had been slain by the law in England ; 
but the king was resolved that it should be done, and done it 
was. 

The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure 
by Henry of the heir to the Scottish throne, — James, a boy of 
nine years old. He had been put aboard ship by his father, the 
Scottish King Robert, to save him from the designs of his 
uncle, when, on his way to France, he was accidentally taken 
by some English cruisers. He remained a prisoner in England 
for nineteen years, and became in his prison a student and a 
famous poet. 

With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh 
and with the French, the rest of King Henry’s reign was quiet 
enough. But the king was far from happy, and probably was 
troubled in his conscience by knowing that he had usurped the 
crown, and had occasioned the death of his miserable cousin. 
The Prince of Wales, though brave and generous, is said to 
have been wild and dissipated, and even to have drawn his 
sword on Gascoigne, the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, 
because he was firm in dealing impartially with one of his 
dissolute companions. Upon this the chief justice is said to 
have ordered him immediately to prison ; the Prince of Wales 
is said to have submitted with a good grace ; and the king is 
said to have exclaimed, “ Happy is the monarch who has so just 
a judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws.” This is all 
very doubtful; and so is another story (of which Shakespeare 
has made beautiful use), that the prince once took the crown 
out of his father’s chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it 
on his own head. 

The king’s health sank more and more, and he became sub- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


181 


ject to violent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, 
and his spirits sank every day. At last, as he was praying 
before the shrine of St. Edward, at Westminster Abbey, he was 
seized with a terrible fit, and was carried into the abbot’s 
chamber, where he presently died. It had been foretold that he 
would die at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was, 
Westminster. But as the abbot’s room had long been called 
the Jerusalem Chamber, people said it was all the same thing, 
and were quite satisfied with the prediction. 

The king died on the twentieth of March, 1413, in the forty- 
seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He 
was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. He had been twice mar¬ 
ried, and had, by his first wife, a family of four sons and two 
daughters. Considering his duplicity before he came to the 
throne, his unjust seizure of it, and, above all, his making that 
monstrous law for the burning of what the priests called here¬ 
tics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went. 


182 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER XXI 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH 

PART THE FIRST 

The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and 
honest man. He set the young Earl of March free; he re¬ 
stored their estates and their honours to the Percy family, 
who had lost them by their rebellion against his father ; he 
ordered the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to be honour¬ 
ably buried among the kings of England; and he dismissed 
all his wild companions, with assurances that they should 
not want, if they would resolve to be steady, faithful, and 
true. 

It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; 
and those of the Lollards were spreading every day. The 
Lollards were represented by the priests — probably falsely for 
the most part — to entertain treasonable designs against the 
new king; and Henry, suffering himself to be worked upon by 
these representations, sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle, 
the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain to convert him 
by arguments. He w T as declared guilty, as the head of the sect, 
and sentenced to the flames; but he escaped from the Tower 
before the day of execution (postponed for fifty days by the 
king himself), and summoned the Lollards to meet him near 
London on a certain day. So the priests told the king, at 
least. I doubt whether there was any conspiracy beyond such 
as was got up by their agents. On the day appointed, instead 
of five-and-twenty thousand men, under the command of Sir 
John Oldcastle, in the meadows of St. Giles, the king found 
only eighty men, and no Sir John at all. There was in another 
place an addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his 
horses, and a pair of gilt spurs in his breast, expecting to be 
made a knight next day by Sir John, and so to gain the right 
to wear them; but there was no Sir John, nor did anybody 


A CHILD’S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 


183 


give information respecting him, though the king offered great 
rewards for such intelligence. Thirty of these unfortunate 
Lollards were hanged and drawn immediately, and were then 
burnt, gallows and all; and the various prisons in and around 
London were crammed full of others. Some of these unfortu¬ 
nate men made various confessions of treasonable designs; but 
such confessions were easily got, under torture and the fear of 
fire, and are very little to be trusted. To finish the sad story 
of Sir John Oldcastle at once, I may mention that he escaped 
into Wales and remained there safely for four years. When 
discovered by Lord Powis, it is very doubtful if he would have 
been taken alive — so great was the old soldier’s bravery — if 
a miserable old woman had not come behind him and broken 
his legs with a stool. He was carried to London in a horse- 
litter, was fastend by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so roasted 
to death. 

To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few words, 
I should tell you that the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Bur¬ 
gundy, commonly called “John without fear,” had had a grand 
reconciliation of their quarrel in the last reign, and had appeared 
to be quite in a heavenly state of mind. Immediately after 
which, on a Sunday, in the public streets of Paris, the Duke of 
Orleans was murdered by a party of twenty men, set on by the 
Duke of Burgundy, according to his own deliberate confession. 
The widow of King Bichard had been married in France to the 
eldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The poor mad king was 
quite powerless to help her; and the Duke of Burgundy became 
the real master of France. Isabella dying, her husband (Duke 
of Orleans, since the death of his father) married the daughter of 
the Count of Armagnac, who, being a much abler man than his 
young son-in-law, headed his party ; thence called after him 
Armagnacs. Thus France was now in this terrible condition, 
that it had in it the party of the king’s son, the Dauphin Louis ; 
the party of the Duke of Burgundy, who was the father of the 
dauphin’s ill-used wife ; and the party of the Armagnacs, — all 
hating each other, all fighting together, all composed of the most 
depraved nobles that the earth has ever known, and all tearing 
unhappy France to pieces. 

The late king had watched these dissensions from England, 
sensible (like the French people) that no enemy of France could 
injure her more than her own nobility. The present king now 


184 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


advanced a claim to the French throne. His demand being, of 
course, refused, he reduced his proposal to a certain large 
amount of French territory, and to demanding the French 
Princess Catherine in marriage, with a fortune of two millions 
of golden crowns. He was offered less territory, and fewer 
crowns, and no princess ; but he called his ambassadors home, 
and prepared for war. Then he proposed to take the princess 
with one million of crowns. The French court replied that 
he should have the princess with two hundred thousand crowns 
less; he said this would not do (he had never seen the 
princess in his life), and assembled his army at Southampton. 
There was a short plot at home, just at that time, for deposing 
him, and making the Earl of March king ; but the conspirators 
were all speedily condemned and executed, and the king em¬ 
barked for France. 

It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be 
followed; but it is encouraging to know that a good example is 
never thrown away. The king’s first act, on disembarking at 
the mouth of the river Seine, three miles from Harfleur, was 
to imitate his father, and to proclaim his solemn orders that 
the lives and property of the peaceable inhabitants should be 
respected on pain of death. It is agreed by French writers, to 
his lasting renown, that, even while his soldiers were suffering 
the greatest distress from want of food, these commands were 
rigidly obeyed. 

With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the 
town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; at the 
end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants 
were allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a part of 
their clothes. All the rest of their possessions was divided 
amongst the English army. But that army suffered so much, 
in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, that it was 
already reduced one-half. Still the king was determined not 
to retire until he had struck a greater blow. Therefore, against 
the advice of all his counsellors, he moved on with his little 
force towards Calais. When he came up to the river Somme 
he was unable to cross, in consequence of the fort being forti¬ 
fied ; and as the English moved up the left bank of the river, 
looking for a crossing, the French, who had broken all the 
bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and waiting 
to attack them when they should try to pass it. At last the 




A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 185 

English found a crossing, and got safely over. The French 
held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English 
battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by which road 
he was going. “ By the road that will take me straight to 
Calais! ” said the king, and sent them away with a present of 
a hundred crowns. 

The English moved on until they beheld the French, and 
then the king gave orders to form in line of battle. The 
French not coming on, the army broke up, after remaining in 
battle array till night, and got good rest and refreshment at a 
neighbouring village. The French were now all lying in an¬ 
other village, through which they knew the English must pass. 
They were resolved that the English should begin the battle. 
The English had no means of retreat, if their king had any 
such intention; and so the two armies passed the night close 
together. 

To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that 
the immense French army had, among its notable persons, almost 
the whole of that wicked nobility whose debauchery had made 
France a desert; and so besotted were they by pride, and by 
contempt for the common people, that they had scarcely any 
bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in their whole enor¬ 
mous number, which, compared with the English army, was at 
least as six to one; for these proud fools had said that the bow 
was not a fit weapon for knightly hands, and that France must 
be defended by gentlemen only. We shall see presently what 
hand the gentlemen made of it. 

Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was 
a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen, by any 
means, but who were good stout archers for all that. Among 
them, in the morning, — having slept little at night, while the 
French were carousing and making sure of victory, — the king 
rode, on a grey horse; wearing on his head a helmet of shining 
steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling with precious 
stones; and bearing over his armour, embroidered together, the 
arms of England and the arms of France. The archers looked 
at the shining helmet, and the crown of gold, and the sparkling 
jewels, and admired them all; but what they admired most was 
the king’s cheerful face, and his bright blue eye, as he told 
them that, for himself, he had made up his mind to conquer 
there or to die there, and that England should never have a 


186 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

ransom to pay for him. There was one brave knight, who 
chanced to say that he wished some of the many gallant gentle¬ 
men and good soldiers, who were then idle at home in England, 
were there to increase their numbers. But the king told him 
that, for his part, he did not wish for one more man. “ The 
fewer we have,” said he, a the greater will be the honour we 
shall win! ” His men, being now all in good heart, were 
refreshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited 
quietly for the French. The king waited for the French, 
because they were drawn up thirty deep (the little English force 
was only three deep), on very difficult and heavy ground; and 
he knew, that, when they moved, there must be confusion 
among them. 

As they did not move, he sent off two parties, — one to lie 
concealed in a wood on the left of the French, the other to set 
fire to some houses behind the French after the battle should 
be begun. This was scarcely done, when three of the proud 
French gentlemen, who were to defend their country without 
any help from the base peasants, came riding out, calling upon 
the English to surrender. The king warned those gentlemen 
himself to retire with all speed, if they cared for their lives, 
and ordered the English banners to advance. Upon that, Sir 
Thomas Erpingham, a great English general who commanded 
the archers, threw his truncheon into the air joyfully; and all 
the Englishmen, kneeling down upon the ground, and biting it 
as if they took possession of the country, rose up with a great 
shout, and fell upon the French. 

Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with 
iron; and his orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, 
to discharge his arrow, and then to fall back when the French 
horsemen came on. As the haughty French gentlemen who 
were to break the English archers, and utterly destroy them 
with their knightly lances, came riding up, they were received 
with such a blinding storm of arrows that they broke and 
turned. Horses and men rolled over one another, and the con. 
fusion was terrific. Those who rallied and charged the archers 
got among the stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were 
so bewildered that the English archers — who wore no armour, 
and even took off their leathern coats to be more active — cut 
them to pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen 
got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All 


t 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 187 

this time the dense French army, being in armour, were sinking 
knee-deep into the mire ; while the light English archers, half- 
naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a 
marble floor. 

But now the second division of the French, coming to the 
relief of the first, closed up in a firm mass; the English, headed 
by the king, attacked them; and the deadliest part of the 
battle began. The king’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, was 
struck down, and numbers of the French surrounded him; but 
King Henry, standing over the body, fought like a lion, until 
they were beaten off. Presently came up a band of eighteen 
French knights, bearing the banner of a certain French lord, 
who had sworn to kill or take the English king. One of them 
struck him such a blow with a battle-axe that he reeled and 
fell upon his knees; but his faithful men, immediately closing 
round him, killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so 
that French lord never kept his oath. 

The French Duke of Alenin, seeing this, made a desperate 
charge, and cut his way close up to the royal standard of Eng¬ 
land. He beat down the Duke of York, who was standing near 
it; and when the king came to his rescue, struck off a piece of 
the crown he wore. But he never struck another blow in this 
world; for, even as he was in the act of saying who he was, 
and that he surrendered to the king, and even as the king 
stretched out his hand to give him a safe and honourable accept¬ 
ance of the offer, he fell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds. 

The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third 
division of the French army, which had never struck a blow 
yet, and which was, in itself, more than double the whole Eng¬ 
lish power, broke and fled. At this time of the fight, the 
English, who as yet had made no prisoners, began to take them 
in immense numbers, and were still occupied in doing so, or in 
killing those who would not surrender, when a great noise arose 
in the rear of the French, — their flying banners were seen to 
stop, — and King Henry, supposing a great re-enforcement to 
have arrived, gave orders that all the prisoners should be put 
to death. As soon, however, as it was found that the noise 
was only occasioned by a body of plundering peasants, the ter¬ 
rible massacre was stopped. 

Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and asked 
him to whom the victory belonged. 


188 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


The herald replied, “ To the king of England. ” 
u We have not made this havoc and slaughter,” said the 
king. “ It is the wrath of heaven on the sins of France. What 
is the name of that castle yonder ? ” 

The herald answered him, “ My lord, it is the castle of 
Azincourt.” 

Said the king, “ From henceforth this battle shall he known 
to posterity by the name of the battle of Azincourt.” 

Our English historians have made it Agincourt; but under 
that name it will ever be famous in English annals. 

The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three dukes 
were killed, two more were taken prisoners; seven counts were 
killed, three more were taken prisoners; and ten thousand 
knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. The Eng¬ 
lish loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among whom were 
the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 

War is a dreadful thing; and it is appalling to know how 
the English were obliged, next morning, to kill those prison¬ 
ers, mortally wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the 
ground; how the dead upon the French side were stripped by 
their own countrymen and countrywomen, and afterwards buried 
in great pits; how the dead upon the English side were piled 
up in a great barn, and how their bodies and the barn were all 
burned together ! It is in such things, and in many more much 
too horrible to relate, that the real desolation and wickedness 
of war consists. Nothing can make war otherwise than hor¬ 
rible. But the dark side of it was little thought of and soon 
forgotten; and it cast no shade of trouble on the English 
people, except on those who had lost friends or relations in the 
fight. They welcomed their king home with shouts of rejoi¬ 
cing, and plunged into the water to bear him ashore on their 
shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every 
town through which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tap¬ 
estries out of the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, 
and made the fountains run with wine, as the great field of 
Agincourt had run with blood. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


189 


PART THE SECOND 

That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their 
country to destruction, and who were every day and every year 
regarded with deeper hatred and detestation in the hearts of the 
French people, learned nothing, even from the defeat of Agin- 
court. So far from uniting against the common enemy, they 
became, among themselves, more violent, more bloody, and more 
false — if that were possible — than they had been before. The 
Count of Armagnac persuaded the French king to plunder of 
her treasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a 
prisoner. She, who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of the 
Duke of Burgundy, proposed to join him, in revenge. He car¬ 
ried her off to Troyes, where she proclaimed herself regent of 
France, and made him her lieutenant. The Armagnac party 
were at that time possessed of Paris; but one of the gates of 
the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a party of 
the duke’s men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons 
all the Armagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, 
a few nights afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty 
thousand people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. 
The former dauphin was now dead, and the king’s third son 
bore the title. Him, in the height of this murderous scene, a 
French knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and bore 
away to Poictiers. So, when the revengeful Isabella and the 
Duke of Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the slaughter 
of their enemies, the dauphin was proclaimed at Poictiers as the 
real regent. 

King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt, 
but had repulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Har- 
fleur, had gradually conquered a great part of Hormandy, and, 
at this crisis of affairs, took the important town of Rouen, after 
a siege of half a year. This great loss so alarmed the French, 
that the Duke of Burgundy proposed that a meeting to treat 
of peace should be held between the French and the English 
kings in a plain by the river Seine. On the appointed day, 
King Henry appeared there, with his two brothers, Clarence and 
Gloucester, and a thousand men. The unfortunate French king, 
being more mad than usual that day, could not come; but the 
queen came, and with her the Princess Catherine, who was a 


190 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


very lovely creature, and who made a real impression on King 
Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was the 
most important circumstance that arose out of the meeting. 

As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time 
to he true to his word of honour in anything, Henry discovered 
that the Duke of Burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret 
treaty with the dauphin j and he therefore abandoned the nego¬ 
tiation. 

The Duke of Burgundy and the dauphin, each of whom, 
with the best reason, distrusted the other as a noble ruffian sur¬ 
rounded by a party of noble ruffians, were rather at a loss how 
to proceed after this; but at length they agreed to meet on a 
bridge over the river Yonne, where it was arranged that there 
should be two strong gates put up, with an empty space between 
them, and that the Duke of Burgundy should come into that 
space by one gate, with ten men only, and that the dauphin 
should come into that space by the other gate, also with ten 
men, and no more. 

So far the dauphin kept his word; hut no farther. When 
the Duke of Burgundy was on his knee before him, in the act 
of speaking, one of the dauphin’s noble ruffians cut the said 
duke down with a small axe, and others speedily finished him. 

It was in vain for the dauphin to pretend that this base 
murder was not done with his consent; it was too had, even 
for France, and caused a general horror. The duke’s heir has¬ 
tened to make a treaty with King Henry, and the French queen 
engaged that her husband should consent to it, whatever it 
was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving the Princess 
Catherine in marriage, and being made regent of France during 
the rest of the king’s lifetime, and succeeding to the French 
crown at his death. He was soon married to the beautiful 
princess, and took her proudly home to England, where she was 
crowned with great honour and glory. 

This peace was called the Perpetual Peace: we shall soon see 
how long it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French 
people, although they were so poor and miserable that, at the 
time of the celebration of the royal marriage, numbers of them 
were dying with starvation, on the dunghills in the streets of 
Paris. There was some resistance on the part of the dauphin 
* in some few parts of France, hut King Henry heat it all down. 

And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and 


A child’s history of encland 


191 


his beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son horn to give him 
greater happiness, all appeared bright before him. But in the 
fulness of his triumph and the height of his power, death came 
upon him, and his day was done. When he fell ill at Vincennes, 
and found that he could not recover, he was very calm and 
quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept around his bed. 
His wife and child, he said, he left to the loving care of his 
brother, the Duke of Bedford, and his other faithful nobles. 
He gave them his advice that England should establish a friend¬ 
ship with the new Duke of Burgundy, and offer him the 
regency of France ; that it should not set free the royal princes 
who had been taken at Agincourt; and that, whatever quarrel 
might arise with France, England should never make peace 
without holding Normandy. Then he laid down his head, and 
asked the attendant priests to chaunt the penitential psalms. 
Amid which solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August, 1422, 
in only the thirty-fourth year of his age and the tenth of his 
reign, King Henry the Fifth passed away. 

Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a 
procession of great state to Paris, and thence to Bouen, where 
his queen was ; from whom the sad intelligence of his death 
was concealed until he had been dead some days. Thence, 
lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a golden crown upon 
the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nerveless 
hands, they carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue as 
seemed to dye the road black. The king of Scotland acted as 
chief mourner, all the royal household followed, the knights 
wore black armour and black plumes of feathers ; crowds of 
men bore torches, making the night as light as day ; and the 
widowed princess followed last of all. At Calais there was 
a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to Dover. And so, 
by way of London Bridge, where the service for the dead was 
chaunted as it passed along, they brought the body to West¬ 
minster Abbey, and there buried it with great respect. 


192 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER XXII 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH 

PART THE FIRST 

It had been the wish of the late king, that while his infant 
son, King Henry the Sixth, at this time only nine months old, 
was under age, the Duke of Gloucester should be appointed 
regent. The English Parliament, however, preferred to appoint 
a council of regency with the Duke of Bedford at its head, to 
be represented in his absence only, by the Duke of Gloucester. 
The Parliament would seem to have been wise in this ; for 
Gloucester soon showed himself to be ambitious and trouble¬ 
some, and, in the gratification of his own personal schemes, gave 
dangerous offence to the Duke of Burgundy, which was with 
difficulty adjusted. 

As that duke declined the regency of Prance, it was bestowed 
by the poor French king upon the Duke of Bedford. But the 
French king dying within two months, the dauphin instantly 
asserted his claim to the French throne, and was actually 
crowned under the title of Charles the Seventh. The Duke of 
Bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a friendly league 
with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave them his 
two sisters in marriage. War with France was immediately 
renewed, and the perpetual peace came to an untimely end. 

In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, 
were speedily successful. As Scotland, however, had sent the 
French five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the 
North of England while England was busy with France, it was 
considered that it would be a good thing to offer the Scottish 
King James, who had been so long imprisoned, his liberty, on 
his paying forty thousand pounds for his board and lodging 
during nineteen years, and engaging to forbid his subjects from 
serving under the flag of France. It is pleasant to know, not 
only that the amiable captive at last regained his freedom upon 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


193 


these terms, but that he married a noble English lady, with whom 
he had been long in love, and became an excellent king. I am 
afraid we have met with some kings in this history, and shall 
meet with some more, who would have been very much the 
better, and would have left the world much happier, if they had 
been imprisoned nineteen years too. 

In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable 
victory at Yerneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, 
otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying 
their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and jum¬ 
bling them up with the baggage, so as to convert them into a 
sort of live fortification, — which was found useful to the troops, 
but which I should think was not agreeable to the horses. Eor 
three years afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides 
being too poor for war, which is a very expensive entertain¬ 
ment ; but a council was then held in Paris, in which it was 
decided to lay siege to the town of Orleans, which was a place 
of great importance to the dauphin’s cause. An English army 
of ten thousand men was despatched on this service, under the 
command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general of fame. He being 
unfortunately killed early in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took 
his place; under whom (re-enforced by Sir John Ealstaff, 
who brought up four hundred wagons laden with salt herrings, 
and other provisions for the troops, and beating off the French, 
who tried to intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skir¬ 
mish, which was afterwards called in jest the Battle of the Her¬ 
rings) the town of Orleans was so completely hemmed in, that 
the besieged proposed to yield it up to their countryman, the 
Duke of Burgundy. The English general, however, replied that 
his Englishmen had won it, so far, by their blood and valour, 
and that his Englishmen must have it. There seemed to be no 
hope for the town, or for the dauphin, who was so dismayed 
that he even thought of flying to Scotland or to Spain, when a 
peasant girl rose up, and changed the whole state of affairs. 

The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell. 


194 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


PART THE SECOND 

THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC 

In a remote village among some wild hills in the province of 
Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was Jacques 
d’Arc. He had a daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time 
in her twentieth year. She had been a solitary girl from her 
childhood; she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole 
days where no human figure was seen or human voice heard ; 
and she had often knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy little 
village chapel, looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burn¬ 
ing before it, until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures 
standing there, and even that she heard them speak to her. 
The people in that part of France were very ignorant and super¬ 
stitious ; and they had many ghostly tales to tell about what 
they had dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely hills 
when the clouds and the mists were resting on them. So they 
easily believed that Joan saw strange sights; and they whis¬ 
pered among themselves that angels and spirits talked to her. 

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been sur¬ 
prised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a 
solemn voice, which said it was St. Michael’s voice, telling her 
that she was to go and help the dauphin. Soon after this (she 
said), St. Catherine and St. Margaret had appeared to her with 
sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged her to 
be virtuous and resolute. These visions had returned sometimes, 
but the voices very often; and the voices• always said, “Joan, 
thou art appointed by Heaven to go and help the dauphin ! ” 
She almost always heard them while the chapel-bells were ringing. 

There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and 
heard these things. It is very well known that such delusions 
are a disease which is not by any means uncommon. It is prob¬ 
able enough that there were figures of St. Michael and St. Cath¬ 
erine and St. Margaret in the little chapel (where they would 
be very likely to have shining crowns upon their heads), and 
that they first gave Joan the idea of those three personages. 
She had long been a moping, fanciful girl; and though she was 
a very good girl, I dare say she was a little vain, and wishful 
for notoriety. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


195 


Her father, something wiser than his neighbours, said, “ I 
tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a kind 
husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ thy 
mind ! ” But Joan told him in reply, that she had taken a vow 
never to have a husband, and that she must go, as Heaven 
directed her, to help the dauphin. 

It happened, unfortunately for her father’s persuasions, and 
most unfortunately for the poor girl too, that a party of the 
dauphin’s enemies found their way into the village, while Joan’s 
disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and drove 
out the inhabitants. The cruelties she saw committed touched 
Joan’s heart, and made her worse. She said that the voices 
and the figures were now continually with her; that they told 
her she was the girl who, according to an old prophecy, was to 
deliver Trance, and she must go and help the dauphin, and 
must remain with him until he should be crowned at Rheims; 
and that she must travel a long way to a certain lord, named 
Baudricourt, who could, and would, bring her into the dauphin’s 
presence. 

As her father still said, “ I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy,” 
she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a 
poor village wheelwright and cartmaker, who believed in the 
reality of her visions. They travelled a long way, and went on 
and on, over a rough country, full of the Duke of Burgundy’s 
men, and of all kind of robbers and marauders, until they came 
to where this lord was. 

When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant 
girl named Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody hut an old 
village wheelwright and cartmaker, who wished to see him, be¬ 
cause she was commanded to help the dauphin and save France, 
Baudricourt burst out a laughing, and bade them send the girl 
away. But he soon heard so much about her lingering in the 
town, and praying in the churches, and seeing visions, and doing 
harm to no one, that he sent for her and questioned her. As 
she said the same things after she had been well sprinkled with 
holy water as she had said before the sprinkling, Baudricourt 
began to think there might be something in it. At all events, 
he thought it worth while to send her on to the town of Chinon, 
where the dauphin was. So he bought her a horse, and a sword, 
and gave her two squires to conduct her. As the voices had 
told Joan that she was to wear a man’s dress, now she put one 


196 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


on, and girded her sword to her side, and bound spurs to her 
heels, and mounted her horse, and rode away with her two 
squires. As to her uncle, the wheelwright, he stood staring at 
his niece in wonder until she was out of sight, —as well he 
might, — and then went home again. The best place too. 

Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came to 
Chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the 
dauphin’s presence. Picking him out immediately from all his 
court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven to 
subdue his enemies, and conduct him to his coronation at 
Kheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, to 
make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number of his 
secrets known only to himself, and, furthermore, she said there 
was an old, old sword in the Cathedral of St. Catherine at 
Pierbois, marked with five old crosses on the blade, which St. 
Catherine had ordered her to wear. 

Now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword; but 
when the cathedral came to be examined, which was immedi¬ 
ately done, there, sure enough, the sword was found ! The 
dauphin then required a number of grave priests and bishops to 
give him their opinion whether the girl derived her power from 
good spirits or from evil spirits ; which they held prodigiously 
long debates about, in the course of which several learned men 
fell fast asleep, and snored loudly. At last, when one gruff old 
gentleman had said to Joan, u What language do your voices 
speak ? ” and when Joan had replied to the gruff old gentle¬ 
man, “ A pleasanter language than yours,” they agreed that it 
was all correct, and that Joan of Arc was inspired from Heaven. 
This wonderful circumstance put new heart into the dauphin’s 
soldiers when they heard of it, and dispirited the English army, 
who took Joan for a witch. 

So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, 
until she came to Orleans. But she rode now as never peasant 
girl had ridden yet. She rode upon a white war-horse, in a 
suit of glittering armour; with the old, old sword from the 
cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt; with a white flag car¬ 
ried before her, upon which were a picture of God, and the 
words Jesus Maria. In this splendid state, at the head of a 
great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for the 
starving inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared before that belea¬ 
guered city. 


A child’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


197 


When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out, 
cc The Maid is come ! the Maid of the prophecy is come to 
deliver us ! ” And this, and the sight of the maid fighting at 
the head of their men, made the French so bold, and made the 
English so fearful, that the English line of forts was soon 
broken, the troops and provisions were got into the town, and 
Orleans W'as saved. 

Joan, henceforth called the Maid of Orleans, remained within 
the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be thrown over, 
ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to depart from before 
the town according to the will of Heaven. As the English 
general very positively declined to believe that Joan knew any¬ 
thing about the will of Heaven (which did not mend the matter 
with his soldiers ; for they stupidly said if she were not inspired 
she was a witch, and it was of no use to fight against a witch), 
she mounted her white war-horse again, and ordered her white 
banner to advance. 

The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon 
the bridge ; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. The 
fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling-ladder 
with her own hands, and mounted a tower-wall, but was struck 
by an English arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. She 
was carried away, and the arrow was taken out, during which 
operation she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other girl 
might have done; but presently she said that the voices were 
speaking to her, and soothing her to rest. After a while she 
got up, and was again foremost in the fight. When the Eng¬ 
lish, who had seen her fall and supposed her dead, saw this, 
they were troubled with the strangest fears; and some of them 
cried out that they beheld St. Michael on a white horse (proba¬ 
bly Joan herself) fighting for the French. They lost the bridge, 
and lost the towers, and next day set their chain of forts on fire, 
and left the place. 

But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no farther than the town 
of Jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of Orleans 
besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As the white 
banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the head with a 
stone, and was again tumbled down into the ditch; but she only 
cried all the more, as she lay there, “ On, on, my countrymen! 
and fear nothing; for the Lord hath delivered them into our 
hands ! ” After this new success of the Maid’s, several other 


198 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

fortresses and places which had previously held out against the 
dauphin were delivered up without a battle ; and at Patay she 
defeated the remainder of the English army, and set up her vic¬ 
torious white banner on a field where twelve hundred English¬ 
men lay dead. 

She now urged the dauphin (who always kept out of the way 
when there was any fighting) to proceed to Bheims, as the first 
part of her mission was accomplished ; and to complete the 
whole by being crowned there. The dauphin was in no partic¬ 
ular hurry to do this, as Bheims was a long way off, and the 
English and the Duke of Burgundy were still strong in the 
country through which the road lay. However, they set forth, 
with ten thousand men, and again the Maid of Orleans rode on 
and on, upon her white war-horse, and in her shining armour. 
Whenever they came to a town which yielded readily, the sol¬ 
diers believed in her ; but whenever they came to a town which 
gave them any trouble, they began to murmur that she was an 
impostor. The latter was particularly the case at Troyes, which 
finally yielded, however, through the persuasion of one Bichard, 
a friar of the place. Eriar Bichard was in the old doubt about 
the Maid of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with holy 
water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate by 
which she came into the city. Finding that it made no change 
in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old gentleman had 
said, that it was all right, and became her great ally. 

So at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of Orleans, 
and the dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing and 
sometimes unbelieving men, came to Bheims. And in the great 
Cathedral of Bheims the dauphin actually was crowned Charles 
the Seventh in a great assembly of the people. Then the Maid, 
who, with her white banner, stood beside the king in that hour 
of his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement at his feet, 
and said, with tears, that what she had been inspired to do was 
done, and that the only recompense she asked for was, that she 
should now have leave to go back to her distant home, and her 
sturdily incredulous father, and her first simple escort, the vil¬ 
lage wheelwright and cartmaker. But the king said, u No ! ” 
and made her and her family as noble as a king could, and 
settled upon her the income of a count. 

Ah! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans if she had 
resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


199 


little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these 
things, and had been a good man’s wife, and had heard no 
stranger voices than the voices of little children! 

It was not to be; and she continued helping the king (she 
did a world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying 
to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading a reli¬ 
gious, an unselfish, and a modest life herself, beyond any doubt. 
Still many times she prayed the king to let her go home; and 
once she even took off her bright armour, and hung it up in a 
church, meaning never to wear it more. But the king always 
won her back again, — while she was of any use to him; and 
so she went on and on and on, to her doom. 

When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, be¬ 
gan to be active for England, and by bringing the war back 
into France, and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to his faith, 
to distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles sometimes 
asked the Maid of Orleans what the voices said about it ? But 
the voices had become (very like ordinary voices in perplexed 
times), contradictory and confused, so that now they said one 
thing, and now said another, and the Maid lost credit every 
day. Charles marched on Paris, which was opposed to him, 
and attacked the suburb of St. Honord. In this fight, being 
again struck down into the ditch, she was abandoned by the 
whole army. She Jay unaided among a heap of dead, and 
crawled out how she could. Then some of her believers went 
over to an opposition maid, Catherine of La Rochelle, who said 
she was inspired to tell where there were treasures of buried 
money — though she never did ; and then Joan accidentally 
broke the old, old sword, and others said that her power was 
broken with it. Finally, at the siege of Compidgne, held by 
the Duke of Burgundy, where she did valiant service, she was 
basely left alone in a retreat, though facing about and fighting 
to the last; and an archer pulled her off her horse. 

Oh, the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that 
were sung, about the capture of this one poor country girl ! Oh, 
the way in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery and 
heresy, and anything else you like, by the Inquisitor-General of 
France, and by this great man, and by that great man, until it is 
wearisome to think of ! She was bought at last by the Bishop of 
Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and was shut up in her narrow 
prison, — plain Joan of Arc again, and Maid of Orleans no more. 


200 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


I should never have done if I were to tell you how they had 
Joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re-exam¬ 
ine her, and worry her into saying anything and everything ; 
and how all sorts of scholars and doctors bestowed their ut¬ 
most tediousness upon her. Sixteen times she was brought out 
and shut up again, and worried and entrapped and argued with, 
until she was heart-sick of the dreary business. On the last 
occasion of this kind she was brought into a burial-place at 
Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold and a stake and fagots, 
and the executioner, and a pulpit with a friar therein, and an 
awful sermon ready. It is very affecting to know that even at 
that pass the poor girl honoured the mean vermin of a king, who 
had so used her for his purposes and so abandoned her; and 
that, while she had been regardless of reproaches heaped upon 
herself, she spoke out courageously for him. 

It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save her 
life, she signed a declaration prepared for her, — signed it with 
a cross, for she could n’t write, — that all her visions and voices 
had come from the Devil. Upon her recanting the past, and 
protesting that she would never wear a man’s dress in future, 
she was condemned to imprisonment for life, “ on the bread 
of sorrow and the water of affliction.” 

But on the bread of sorrow and water of affliction, the visions 
and the voices soon returned. It was quite natural that 
they should do so; for that kind of disease is much aggravated 
by fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It was not only 
got out of Joan that she considered herself inspired again, but 
she was taken in a man’s dress, which had been left — to en¬ 
trap her — in her prison, and which she put on in her solitude; 
perhaps in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps because 
the imaginary voices told her. Bor this relapse into the sorcery 
and heresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be 
burnt to death. And in the market-place of Rouen, in the hid¬ 
eous dress which the monks had invented for such spectacles, 
with priests and bishops sitting in a gallery looking on, — 
though some had the Christian grace to go away, unable to en¬ 
dure the infamous scene, — the shrieking girl, last seen amidst 
the smoke and firfe holding a crucifix between her hands, last 
heard calling upon Christ, was burnt to ashes. They threw her 
ashes in the river Seine; but they will rise against her murder¬ 
ers on the last day. 



JOAN OF ARC STATUE, ROUEN 





































































. 











































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


201 


From the moment of her capture, neither the French king 
nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. 
It was no defence of them that they may have never really be¬ 
lieved in her, or that they may have won her victories by their 
skill and bravery. The more they pretended to believe in her 
the more they had caused her to believe in herself; and she had 
ever been true to them, ever brave, ,ever nobly devoted. But 
it is no wonder that they who were in all things false to them¬ 
selves, false to one another, false to their country, false to 
Heaven, false to earth, should be monsters of ingratitude and 
treachery to a helpless peasant girl. 

In the picturesque old town of Bouen, where weeds and grass 
grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable Norman 
streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight, though the monk¬ 
ish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have long grown 
cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene of her last 
agony, the square to which she has given its present name. I 
know some statues of modern times, — even in the world’s 
metropolis, I think, — which commemorate less constancy, less 
earnestness, smaller claims upon the world’s attention, and much 
greater impostors. 


PART THE THIRD 

Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind ; and the 
English cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan 
of Arc. For a long time the war went heavily on. The Duke 
of Bedford died, the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy was 
broken, and Lord Talbot became a great general on the Eng¬ 
lish side in France. But two of the consequences of wars are, 
famine, because the people cannot peacefully cultivate the 
ground, and pestilence, which comes of want, misery, and suffer¬ 
ing. Both these horrors broke out in both countries, and lasted 
for two wretched years. Then the war went on again, and came 
by slow degrees to be so badly conducted by the English govern¬ 
ment that, within twenty years from the execution of the Maid 
of Orleans, of all the great French conquests, the town of Calais 
alone remained in English hands. 

While these victories and defeats were taking place in the 
course of time, many strange things happened at home. The 
young king, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great 


202 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


father, and showed himself a miserable, puny creature. There 
was no harm in him. He had a great aversion to shedding 
blood, which was something ; but he was a weak, silly, helpless 
young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordly battle¬ 
dores about the court. 

Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the 
king, and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most pow¬ 
erful. The Duke of Gloucester had a wife who was nonsensi¬ 
cally accused of practising witchcraft to cause the king’s death 
and lead to her husband’s coming to the throne, he being the 
next heir. She was charged with having, by the help of a ridic- 
idous woman named Margery (who was called a witch), made 
a little waxen doll in the king’s likeness, and put it before a 
slow fire that it might gradually melt away. It was supposed, 
in such cases, that the death of the person whom the doll was 
made to represent was sure to happen. Whether the duchess 
was as ignorant as the rest of them, and really did make such a 
doll with such an intention, I don’t know ; but you and I know 
very well that she might have made a thousand dolls, if she 
had been stupid enough, and might have melted them all with¬ 
out hurting the king or anybody else. However, she was tried 
for it, and so was old Margery, and so was one of the duke’s 
chaplains, who was charged with having assisted them. Both 
he and Margery were put to death ; and the duchess, after being 
taken on foot, and bearing a lighted candle, three times round 
the city, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke him¬ 
self took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stir about 
the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the duchess. 

But he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. 
The royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores 
were very anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester 
wanted him to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; 
but the cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk were all for Margaret, 
the daughter of the king of Sicily, who they knew was a reso¬ 
lute, ambitious woman, and would govern the king as she chose. 
To make friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, who went 
over to arrange the match, consented to accept her for the king’s 
wife without any fortune, and even to give up the two most 
valuable possessions England then had in Erance. So the 
marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous to the lady ; 
and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, and she was married 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


203 


at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and her party 
charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a 
couple of years, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so 
confused ; hut they pretended that the king’s life was in dan¬ 
ger, and they took the duke prisoner. A fortnight afterwards, 
he was found dead in bed (they said), and his body was shown 
to the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for the best part of 
his estates. You know by this time how strangely liable state 
prisoners were to sudden death. 

If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him 
no good; for he died within six weeks, thinking it very hard 
and curious — at eighty years old ! — that he could not live to 
be pope. 

This was the time when England had completed her loss of 
all her great Erencli conquests. The people charged the loss 
principally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had 
made those easy terms about the royal marriage, and who, they 
believed, had even been bought by France. So he was im¬ 
peached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, hut chiefly 
on accusations of having aided the French king, and of design¬ 
ing to make his own son king of England. The commons and 
the people being violent against him, the king was made (by 
his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him for five 
years, and proroguing the Parliament. The duke had much 
ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who 
lay in wait for him in St. Giles’s Fields; but he got down to 
his own estates in Suffolk, and sailed away from Ipswich. Sail¬ 
ing across the Channel, he sent into Calais to know if he might 
land there; hut they kept his boat and men in the harbour, 
until an English ship, carrying a hundred and fifty men, and 
called Nicholas of the Tower, came alongside his little vessel, 
and ordered him on hoard. “ Welcome, traitor, as men say,” 
was the captain’s grim and not very respectful salutation. He 
was kept on board, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and 
then a small boat appeared rowing toward the ship. As this 
boat came nearer, it was seen to have in it a block, a rusty 
sword, and an executioner in a black mask. The duke was 
handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with six 
strokes of the rusty sword. Then the little boat rowed away 
to Dover Beach, where the body was cast out and left until the 
duchess claimed it. By whom, high in authority, this murder 


204 A child’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

was committed, has never appeared. No one was ever punished 
for it. 

There now arose in Kent an Irishman who gave himself the 
name of IMortimer, hut whose real name was Jack Cade. Jack, 
in imitation of Wat Tyler, though he was a very different and 
inferior sort of man, addressed the Kentish men upon their 
wrongs, occasioned by the had government of England, among 
so many battledores and such a poor shuttlecock; and the 
Kentish men rose up to the number of twenty thousand. Their 
place of assembly was Blackheath, where, headed by Jack, they 
put forth two papers, which they called u The Complaint of 
the Commons of Kent,” and u The Bequests of the Captain 
of the Great Assembly in Kent.” They then retired to Seven- 
oaks. The royal army coming up with them here, they beat 
it, and killed their general. Then Jack dressed himself in the 
dead general’s armour, and led his men to London. 

Jack passed into the city from Southwark, over the bridge, 
and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men 
not to plunder. Having made a show of his forces there while 
the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into Southwark in 
good order, and passed the night. Next day he came back 
again, having got hold in the mean time of Lord Say, an unpop¬ 
ular nobleman. Says Jack to the lord mayor and judges, “ Will 
you be so good as to make a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me 
this nobleman ? ” The court being hastily made, he was found 
guilty; and Jack and his men cut his head off on Cornhill. 
They also cut off the head of his son-in-law, and then went back 
in good order to Southwark again. 

But although the citizens could bear the beheading of an 
unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pil¬ 
laged. And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner, —• 
perhaps he had drunk a little too much, — began to plunder 
the house where he lodged; upon which, of course, his men 
began to imitate him. Wherefore the Londoners took council 
with Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower, 
and defended London Bridge, and kept Jack and his people 
out. This advantage gained, it was resolved by divers great 
men to divide Jack’s army in the old way, by making a great 
many promises, on behalf of the state, that were never intended 
to be performed. This did divide them: some of Jack’s men 
saying that they ought to take the conditions which were offered, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


205 


and others saying that they ought not, for they were only a 
snare; some going home at once; others staying where they 
were ; and all doubting and quarrelling among themselves. 

Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a 
pardon, and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was 
nothing to expect from his men, and that it was very likely 
some of them would deliver him up, and get a reward of a 
thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension. So 
after they had travelled and quarrelled all the way from South¬ 
wark to Blackheath, and from Blackheath to Rochester, he 
mounted a good horse, and galloped away into Sussex. But 
there galloped after him, on a better horse, one Alexander Iden, 
who came up with him, had a hard fight with him, and killed 
him. Jack’s head was set aloft on London Bridge, with the 
face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag ; 
and Alexander Iden got the thousand marks. 

It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had 
been removed from a high post abroad through the queen’s 
influence, and sent out of the way to govern Ireland, was at the 
bottom of this rising of Jack and his men, because he wanted to 
trouble the government. He claimed (though not yet publicly) 
to have a better right to the throne than Henry of Lancas¬ 
ter, as one of the family of the Earl of March, whom Henry 
the Fourth had set aside. Touching this claim, which, being 
through female relationship, was not according to the usual 
descent, it is enough to say that Henry the Fourth was the free 
choice of the people and the Parliament, and that his family 
had now reigned undisputed for sixty years. The memory of 
Henry the Fifth was so famous, and the English people loved 
it so much, that the Duke of York’s claim would, perhaps, 
never have been thought of (it would have been so hopeless) 
but for the unfortunate circumstance of the present king’s being 
by this time quite an idiot, and the country very ill-governed. 
These two circumstances gave the Duke of York a power he 
could not otherwise have had. 

Whether the duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he 
came over from Ireland while Jack’s head was on London 
Bridge; being secretly advised that the queen was setting up 
his enemy, the Duke of Somerset, against him. He went to 
Westminster at the head of four thousand men, and on his 
knees before the king represented to him the bad state of the 


206 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


country, and petitioned him to summon a Parliament to consider 
it. This the king promised. When the Parliament was sum¬ 
moned, the Duke of York accused the Duke of Somerset, and 
the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of York; and, both in 
and out of Parliament, the followers of each party were full of 
violence and hatred towards the other. At length, the Duke of 
York put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants, 
and, in arms, demanded the reformation of the government. 
Being shut out of London, he encamped at Dartford, and the 
royal army encamped at Blackheath. According as either side 
triumphed, the Duke of York was arrested, or the Duke of 
Somerset was arrested. The trouble ended, for the moment, 
in the Duke of York renewing his oath of allegiance, and going 
in peace to one of his own castles. 

Half a year afterwards the queen gave birth to a son, who 
was very ill received by the people, and not believed to be the 
son of the king. It shows the Duke of York to have been a 
moderate man, unwilling to involve England in new troubles, 
that he did not take advantage of the general discontent at this 
time, but really acted for the public good. He was made a 
member of the cabinet; and the king being now so much worse 
that he could not be carried about and shown to the people 
with any decency, the duke was made Lord Protector of the 
kingdom, until the king should recover, or the prince should 
come of age. At the same time the Duke of Somerset was 
committed to the Tower. So now the Duke of Somerset was 
down, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, 
however, the king recovered his memory and some spark of 
sense ; upon which the queen used her power, which recovered 
with him, to get the protector disgraced, and her favourite 
released. So now the Duke of York was down, and the Duke 
of Somerset was up. 

These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole 
nation into the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led to 
those terrible civil wars long known as the Wars of the Bed 
and White Boses, because the red rose was the badge of the 
House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badge of 
the House of York. 

The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen 
of the White Bose party, and leading a small army, met the 
king with another small army at St. Alban’s, and demanded 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


207 


that the Duke of Somerset should he given up. The poor king, 
being made to say in answer that he would sooner die, was 
instantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was killed ; and the 
king himself was wounded in the neck, and took refuge in the 
house of a poor tanner. Whereupon the Duke of York went to 
him, led him with great submission to the abbey, and said he 
was very sorry for what had happened. Having now the king 
in his possession, he got a Parliament summoned, and himself 
once more made Protector, but only for a few months; for on 
the king getting a little better again, the queen and her party 
got him into their possession, and disgraced the duke once more. 
So now the Duke of York was down again. 

Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these 
constant changes, tried even then to prevent the Ped and the 
White Pose Wars. They brought about a great council in 
London between the two parties. The White Poses assembled 
in Blackfriars, the Ped Poses in Whitefriars; and some good 
priests communicated between them, and made the proceedings 
known at evening to the king and the judges. They ended in 
a peaceful agreement that there should be no more quarrelling; 
and there was a great royal procession to St. Paul’s, in which 
the queen walked arm in arm with her old enemy, the Duke of 
York, to show the people how comfortable they all were. This 
state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute between the 
Earl of Warwick (one of the duke’s powerful friends) and some 
of the king’s servants at court led to an attack upon that earl, 
— who was a White Pose, — and to a sudden breaking-out of 
all old animosities. So here were greater ups and downs than 
ever. 

There were even greater ups and downs than these soon after. 
After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his 
son, the Earl of March, to Calais, with their friends, the earls 
of Salisbury and Warwick; and a Parliament was held declaring 
them all traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl of War¬ 
wick presently came back, landed in Kent, was joined by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury and other powerful noblemen and 
gentlemen, engaged the king’s forces at Northampton, signally 
defeated them, and took the king himself prisoner, who was 
found in his tent. Warwick would' have been glad, I dare say, 
to have taken the queen and prince too; but they escaped into 
Wales, and thence into Scotland. 


208 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


The king was carried by the victorious force straight to Lon¬ 
don, and made to call a new Parliament, which immediately 
declared that the Duke of York and those other noblemen were 
not traitors, but excellent subjects. Then back comes the duke 
from Ireland at the head of five hundred horsemen, rides from 
London to Westminster, and enters the House of Lords. There 
he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered the 
empty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit down in it; but 
he did not. On the Archbishop of Canterbury asking him if 
he would visit the king, who was in his palace close by, he 
replied, u I know no one in this country, my lord, who ought 
not to visit me.” None of the lords present spoke a single 
word; so the duke went out as he had come in, established 
himself royally in the king’s palace, and, six days afterwards, 
sent in to the lords a formal statement of his claim to the 
throne. The lords went to the king on this momentous sub¬ 
ject; and after a great deal of discussion, in which the judges 
and the other law-officers were afraid to give an opinion on 
either side, the question was compromised. It was agreed that 
the present king should retain the crown for his life, and that it 
should then pass to the Duke of York and his heirs. 

But the resolute queen, determined on asserting her son’s 
right, would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland 
to the North of England, where several powerful lords armed in 
her cause. The Duke of York, for his part, set off with some 
five thousand men, a little time before Christmas Day, 1460, to 
give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield; 
and the Bed Bose defied him to come out on Wakefield Green, 
and fight them then and there. His generals said he had best 
wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with his 
power; but he was determined to accept the challenge. He 
did so in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two 
thousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he him¬ 
self was taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state on 
an ant-hill, and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to 
pay court to him on their knees, saying, “ 0 King! without a 
kingdom, and Prince! without a people, we hope your gracious 
majesty is very well and happy.” They did worse than this: 
they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the queen, 
who laughed with delight when she saw it (you recollect their 
walking so religiously and comfortably to St. Paul’s!), and had 



GATE IN THE WALLS OF YORK 
























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


209 


it fixed, with a paper crown upon its head, on the walls of 
York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head too; and the Duke 
of York’s second son, a handsome boy, who was flying with his 
tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the heart by a 
murderous lord, — Lord Clifford by name, — whose father had 
been killed by the White Roses in the fight at St. Alban’s. 
There was awful sacrifice of life in this battle; for no quarter 
was given, and the queen was wild for revenge. When men 
unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always 
observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with rage than 
they are against any other enemy. 

But Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of 
York, not the first. The eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, 
was at Gloucester ; and vowing vengeance for the death of his 
father, his brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march 
against the queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of 

Welsh and Irish first, who worried his advance. These he 

/ 

defeated in a great fight at Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford, 
where he beheaded a number of the Red Roses taken in battle, 
in retaliation for the beheading of the White Roses at Wake¬ 
field. The queen had the next turn of beheading. Having 
moved towards London, and falling in, between St. Alban’s and 
Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Norfolk, 
White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose her, 
and had got the king with them, she defeated them with great 
loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were 
in the king’s tent with him, and to whom the king had promised 
his protection. Her triumph, however, was very short. She 
had no treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. This 
caused them to be hated and dreaded by the people, and par¬ 
ticularly by the London people, who were wealthy. As soon 
as the Londoners heard that Edward, Earl of March, united 
with the Earl of Warwick, was advancing towards the city, 
they refused to send the queen supplies, and made a great 
rejoicing. 

The queen and her men retreated with all speed ; and Edward 
and Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every 
side. The courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could 
not be sufficiently praised by the whole people. He rode into 
London like a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. 
A few days afterwards, Lord Ealconbridge and the Bishop of 


210 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Exeter assembled the citizens in St. John’s Field, Clerkenwell, 
and asked them if they would have Henry of Lancaster for 
their king? To this they all roared, “No, no, no!” and 
“ King Edward! King Edward ! ” Then, said these noble¬ 
men, would they love and serve young Edward ? To this they 
all cried, “Yes, yes! ” and threw up their caps, and clapped 
their hands, and cheered tremendously. 

Therefore it was declared that, by joining the queen, and 
not protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster 
had forfeited the crown; and Edward of York was proclaimed 
king. He made a great speech to the applauding people at 
Westminster, and sat down as sovereign of England on that 
throne, on the golden covering of which his father — worthy of 
a better fate than the bloody axe which cut the thread of so 
many lives in England, through so many years — had laid his 
hand. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


211 


CHAPTER XXIII 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD 'THE FOURTH 

King Edward the Fourth was not quite twenty-one years 
of age when lie took that unquiet seat upon the throne of Eng¬ 
land. The Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then assem¬ 
bling in great numbers near York, and it was necessary to give 
them battle instantly. But the stout Earl of Warwick, leading 
for the young king, and the young king himself closely follow¬ 
ing him, and the English people crowding round the royal stan¬ 
dard, the White and the Red Roses met, on a wild March day, 
when the snow was falling heavily, at Towton; and there such 
a furious battle raged between them, that the total loss amounted 
to forty thousand men, — all Englishmen, fighting, upon Eng¬ 
lish ground, against one another. The young king gained the 
day, took down the heads of his father and brother from the 
walls of York, and put up the heads of some of the most famous 
noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side. Then he 
went to London, and was crowned with great splendour. 

A new Parliament met. Ho fewer than one hundred and 
fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster 
side were declared traitors; and the king, who had very little 
humanity, though he was handsome in person and agreeable in 
manners, resolved to do all he could to pluck up the Red Rose, 
root and branch. 

Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young son. 
She obtained help from Scotland and from Kormandy, and took 
several important English castles. But Warwick soon retook 
them; the queen lost all her treasure on hoard ship in a great 
storm; and both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. 
Once, in the winter weather, as they were riding through a for¬ 
est, they were attacked and plundered by a party of robbers; 
and when they had escaped from these men, and were passing alone 
and on foot through a thick, dark part of the wood, they came, 
all at once, upon another robber. So the queen, with a stout 


212 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


heart, took the little prince by the hand, and going straight np 
to that robber, said to him, “ My friend, this is the young son 
of your lawful king! I confide him to your care. ” The rob¬ 
ber was surprised, but took the boy in his arms, and faithfully 
restored him and his mother to their friends. In the end, the 
queen’s soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she went abroad 
again, and kept quiet for the present. 

Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed by 
a Welsh knight, who kept him close in his castle. But next 
year the Lancaster party, recovering their spirits, raised a large 
body of men, and called him out of his retirement to put him 
at their head. They were joined by some powerful noblemen 
who had sworn fidelity to the new king, hut who were ready, 
as usual, to break their oaths whenever they thought there was 
anything to he got by it. One of the worst things in the 
history of the war of the Bed and White Boses is the ease with 
which these noblemen, who should have set an example of 
honour to the people, left either side as they took slight offence, 
or were disappointed in their greedy expectations, and joined 
the other. Well, Warwick’s brother soon beat the Lancastrians ; 
and the false noblemen, being taken, were beheaded without a 
moment’s loss of time. The deposed king had a narow escape; 
three of his servants were taken; and one of them bore his cap 
of estate, which was set with pearls, and embroidered with two 
golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap belonged 
got safely into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly there (the 
people in the secret being very true) for more than a year. At 
length an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry’s 
being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called 
Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London, and 
met at Islington by the Earl of Warwick, by whose directions 
he was put upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded 
three times round the pillory. Then he was carried off to the 
Tower, where they treated him well enough. 

The White Bose being so triumphant, the young king aban¬ 
doned himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But 
thorns were springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon 
found out; for having been privately married to Elizabeth Wood- 
ville, a young widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating, 
and at last resolving to make his secret known and to declare 
her his queen, he gave some offence to the Earl of Warwick, 



YORK MINSTER FROM THE OLD WALLS 























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


213 


who was usually called the Kingmaker, because of his power and 
influence, and because of his having lent such great help to 
placing Edward on the throne. This offence was not lessened 
by the jealousy with which the Nevil family (the Earl of War¬ 
wick’s) regarded the promotion of the Woodville family. For 
the young queen was so bent on providing for her relations 
that she made her father an earl and a great officer of state, 
married her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank, 
and provided for her younger brother, a young man of twenty, 
by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty. 
The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man 
of his proud temper, until the question arose to whom the 
king’s sister, Margaret, should be married. The Earl of Warwick 
said, “ To one of the French king’s sons,” and was allowed to 
go over to the French king to make friendly proposals for that 
purpose, and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. 
But while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the 
young lady to the Duke of Burgundy. Upon this he came 
back in great rage and scorn, and shut himself up discontented 
in his castle at Middleham. 

A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched 
up between the Earl of Warwick and the king, and lasted until 
the earl married his daughter, against the king’s wishes, to the 
Duke of Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated at 
Calais, the people in the North of England, where the influence 
of the Nevil family was strongest, broke out into rebellion ; 
their complaint was, that England was oppressed and plundered 
by the Woodville family, whom they demanded to have re¬ 
moved from power. As they were joined by great numbers of 
people, and as they openly declared that they were supported 
by the Earl of Warwick, the king did not know what to do. 
At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching his aid, he and his 
new son-in-law came over to England, and began to arrange the 
business by shutting the king up in Middleham Castle in the 
safe keeping of the Archbishop of York: so England was not 
only in the strange position of having two kings at once, but 
they were both prisoners at the same time. 

Even as yet, however, the Kingmaker was so far true to the 
king that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took 
their leader prisoner, and brought him to the king, who ordered 
him to be immediately executed. He presently allowed the 


214 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


king to return to London, and there innumerable pledges of 
forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between them, 
and between the Nevils and the Woodvilles ; the king’s eldest 
daughter was promised in marriage to the heir of the Kevil 
family; and more friendly oaths were sworn, and more friendly 
promises made, than this book would hold. 

They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, 
the Archbishop of York made a feast for the king, the Earl of 
Warwick, and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in 
Hertfordshire. The king was washing his hands before supper, 
when some one whispered him that a body of a hundred men 
were lying in ambush outside the house. Whether this were 
true or untrue, the king took fright, mounted his horse, and 
rode through the dark night to Windsor Castle. Another recon¬ 
ciliation was patched up between him and the Kingmaker; but 
it was a short one, and it was the last. A new rising took place 
in Lincolnshire, and the king marched to repress it. Having 
done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of Warwick and the 
Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly assisted it, and 
who had been prepared publicly to join it on the following day. 
In these dangerous circumstances, they both took ship and sailed 
away to the French court. 

And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick 
and his old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through whom 
his father had had his head struck off, and to whom he had 
been a bitter foe. But now, when he said that he had done 
with the ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and that 
henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of the House 
of Lancaster, either in the person of her husband or of her little 
son, she embraced him as if he had ever been her dearest friend. 
She did more than that; she married her son to his second 
daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this marriage 
was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to the Duke of 
Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the Kingmaker, 
would never make him king now. So, being but a weak-minded 
young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he readily 
listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, and 
promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother, 
King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should come. 

The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon 
redeemed his promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 215 

invading England, and landing at Plymouth, where he in¬ 
stantly proclaimed King Henry, and summoned all English¬ 
men between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join his banner. 
Then, with his army increasing as he marched along, he went 
northward, and came so near King Edward, who was in that 
part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to the 
coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away, in such ships as 
he could find, to Holland. Thereupon the triumphant King¬ 
maker and his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to 
London, took the old king out of the Tower, and walked him 
in a great procession to St. Paul’s Cathedral with the crown 
upon his head. This did not improve the temper of the Duke 
of Clarence, who saw himself further off from being king than 
ever; but he kept his secret, and said nothing. The Nevil 
family were restored to all their honours and glories, and the 
Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The Kingmaker, less 
sanguinary than the king, shed no blood except that of the 
Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel to the people as to 
have gained the title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden 
in a tree, and him they tried and executed. No other death 
stained the Kingmaker’s triumph. 

To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next 
year, landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his 
men to cry, “ Long live King Henry ! ” and swearing on the 
altar, without a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the 
crown. Now was the time for the Duke of Clarence, who 
ordered his men to assume the White Rose, and declare for 
his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the Earl of 
Warwick’s brother, also declining to fight King Edward, he 
went on successfully to London, where the Archbishop of York 
let him into the city, and where the people made great demon¬ 
stration in his favour. For this they had four reasons. Firstly, 
there were great numbers of the king’s adherents hiding in the 
city and ready to break out; secondly, the king owed them a 
great deal of money, which they could never hope to get if 
he were unsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to in¬ 
herit the crown ; and fourthly, the king was gay and handsome, 
and more popular than a better man might have been with the 
city ladies. After a stay of only two days with these worthy 
supporters, the king marched out to Barnet Common to give 
the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was to be seen, for 


216 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the last time, whether the king or the Kingmaker was to carry 
the day. 

While the battle was yet pending, the faint-hearted Duke of 
Clarence began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his 
father-in-law, offering his services in mediation with the king. 
But the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and re¬ 
plied that Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would 
settle the quarrel by the sword. The battle began at four 
o’clock in the morning, and lasted until ten ; and during the 
greater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist, absurdly 
supposed to be raised by a magician. The loss of life was very 
great, for the hatred was strong on both sides. The King¬ 
maker was defeated, and the king triumphed. Both the Earl 
of Warwick and his brother were slain ; and their bodies lay in 
St. Paul’s for some days, as a spectacle to the people. 

Margaret’s spirit was not broken even by this great blow. 
Within five days she was in arms again, and raised her stan¬ 
dard in Bath, whence she set off with her army to try and join 
Lord Pembroke, who had a force in Wales. But the king 
coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbury, and order¬ 
ing his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who was a brave 
soldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire defeat, and 
was taken prisoner, together with her son, now only eighteen 
years of age. The conduct of the king to this poor youth was 
worthy of his cruel character. He ordered him to be led into 
his tent. “ And what,” said he, “ brought you to England ? ” 
— “ I came to England,” replied the prisoner, with a spirit 
which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, u to 
recover my father’s kingdom, which descended to him as his 
right, and from him descends to me as mine.” The king, 
drawing off his iron gauntlet, struck him with it in the face ; 
and the Duke of Clarence and some other lords, who were there, 
drew their noble swords and killed him. 

His mother survived him, a prisoner, for five years; after 
her ransom by the king of Prance, she survived for six years 
more. Within three weeks of this murder, Henry died one of 
those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the 
Tower ; in plainer words, he was murdered by the king’s order. 

Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great 
defeat of the Lancaster party, and being perhaps desirous to get 
rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


217 


be handsome), the king thought of making war on France. As 
he wanted more money for this purpose than the Parliament 
could give him, though they were usually ready enough for war, 
he invented a new way of raising it, by sending for the princi¬ 
pal citizens of London, and telling them, with a grave face, that 
he was very much in want of cash, and would take it very kind 
in them if they would lend him some. It being impossible for 
them safely to refuse, they complied; and the moneys thus 
forced from them were called, — no doubt to the great amuse¬ 
ment of the king and the court, — as if they were free gifts, 
“ benevolences.” What with grants from Parliament, and what 
with benevolences, the king raised an army, and passed over 
to Calais. As nobody wanted war, however, the French king 
made proposals of peace, which were accepted; and a truce was 
concluded for seven long years. The proceedings between the 
kings of France and England on this occasion were very 
friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful. They finished 
with a meeting between the two kings, on a temporary bridge 
over the river Somme, where they embraced through two holes 
in a strong wooden grating, like a lion’s cage, and made several 
bows and fine speeches to one another. 

It was time now that the Duke of Clarence should be pun¬ 
ished for his treacheries; and Fate had his punishment in store. 
He was, probably, not trusted by the king (for who could trust 
him who knew him ?) ; and he had certainly a powerful oppo¬ 
nent in his brother Bichard, Duke of Gloucester, who, being 
avaricious and ambitious, wanted to marry that widowed daugh¬ 
ter of the Earl of Warwick’s who had been espoused to the 
deceased young prince at Calais. Clarence, who wanted all the 
family wealth for himself, secreted this lady, whom Bichard 
found disguised as a servant in the City of London, and whom 
he married; arbitrators appointed by the king then divided the 
property between the brothers. This led to ill-will and mistrust 
between them. Clarence’s wife dying, and he wishing to make 
another marriage which was obnoxious to the king, his ruin was 
hurried by that means too. At first the court struck at his 
retainers and dependants, and accused some of them of magic 
and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. Successful against this 
small game, it then mounted to the duke himself, who was 
impeached by his brother the king, in person, on a variety of 
such charges. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be pub- 


218 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


licly executed. He never was publicly executed j but lie met 
his death somehow in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some 
agency of the king or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was 
supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of 
his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malm¬ 
sey wine. I hope the story may be true; for it would have 
been a becoming death for such a miserable creature. 

The king survived him some five years. He died in the 
forty-second year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign. 
He had a very good capacity, and some good points; but he 
was selfish, careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favourite 
with the people for his showy manners; and the people were a 
good example to him in the constancy of their attachment. He 
was penitent on his death-bed for his “ benevolences ” and other 
extortions, and ordered restitution to be made to the people 
who had suffered from them. He also called about his bed the 
enriched members of the Woodville family, and the proud lords 
whose honours were of older date, and endeavoured to reconcile 
them, for the sake of the peaceful succession of his son, and the 
tranquillity of England. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


219 


CHAPTER XXIV 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH 

The late king’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called 
Edward, after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father’s 
death. He was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of 
Rivers. The prince’s brother, the Duke of York, only eleven 
years of age, was in London with his mother. The boldest, 
most crafty, and most dreaded nobleman in England at that 
time was their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and every¬ 
body wondered how the two poor boys would fare with such an 
uncle for a friend or a foe. 

The queen their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about 
this, was anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord 
Rivers to raise an army to escort the young king safely to 
London. But Lord Hastings, who was of the court party 
opposed to the Woodvilles, and who disliked the thought of 
giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and 
obliged the queen to be satisfied with an escort of two thousand 
horse. The Duke of Gloucester did nothing, at first, to justify 
suspicion. He came from Scotland (where he was commanding 
an army) to York, and was there the first to swear allegiance to 
his nephew. He then wrote a condoling letter to the queen 
mother, and set off to be present at the coronation in London. 

Xow, the young king, journeying towards London too, with 
Lord Rivers and Lord Grey, came to Stony Stratford as his 
uncle came to Northampton, about ten miles distant; and when 
those two lords heard that the Duke of Gloucester was so near, 
they proposed to the young king that they should go back and 
greet him in his name. The boy being very willing that they 
should do so, they rode off and were received with great friend¬ 
liness, and asked by the Duke of .Gloucester to stay and dine 
with him. In the evening, while they were merry together, up 
came the Duke of Buckingham with three hundred horsemen; 
and next morning the two lords, and the two dukes, and the 


220 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

three hundred horsemen rode away together to rejoin the king. 
Just as they were entering Stony Stratford, the Duke of 
Gloucester, checking his horse, turned suddenly on the two 
lords, charged them with alienating from him the affections of 
his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested by the three 
hundred horsemen and taken hack. Then he and the Duke of 
Buckingham went straight to the king (whom they had now in 
their power), to whom they made a show of kneeling down, 
and offering great love and submission ; and then they ordered 
his attendants to disperse, and took him, alone with them, to 
Northampton. 

A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and 
lodged him in the bishop’s palace. But he did not remain there 
long; for the Duke of Buckingham, with a tender face, made a 
speech, expressing how anxious he was for the royal hoy’s 
safety, and how much safer he would be in the Tower until his 
coronation, than he could he anywhere else. So to the Tower 
he was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of Gloucester was 
named Protector of the State. 

Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very 
smooth countenance ; and although he was a clever man, fair 
of speech, and not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders 
being something higher than the other ; and although he had 
come into the city riding bareheaded at the king’s side, and 
looking very fond of him, — he had made the king’s mother 
more uneasy yet; and when the royal boy was taken to the 
Tower, she became so alarmed that she took sanctuary in West¬ 
minster with her five daughters. 

Nor did she do this without reason; for the Duke of 
Gloucester, finding that the lords who were opposed to the 
Woodville family were faithful to the young king nevertheless, 
quickly resolved to strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, 
while those lords met in council at the Tower, he and those 
who were in his interest met in separate council at his own 
residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at last 
quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the coun¬ 
cil in the Tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. 
He was particularly gay with the Bishop of Ely : praising the 
strawberries that grew in his garden on Holborn Hill, and ask¬ 
ing him to have some gathered that he might eat them at 
dinner. The bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent one of his 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


221 


men to fetch some; and the duke, still very jocular and gay, 
went out, and the council all said what a very agreeable duke 
he was! In a little time, however, he came hack quite 
altered ; not at all jocular, frowning and fierce; and suddenly 
said, — 

u What do those persons deserve who have compassed my 
destruction; I being the king’s lawful, as well as natural, pro¬ 
tector ? ” 

To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they 
deserved death, whosoever they were. 

“ Then,” said the duke, “ I tell you that they are that sor¬ 
ceress, my brother’s wife,” — meaning the queen, — “ and that 
other sorceress, Jane Shore, who, by witchcraft, have withered 
my body, and caused my arm to shrink as I now show you.” 

He then pulled up his sleeve, and showed them his arm, 
which was shrunken, it is true, hut which had been so, as they 
all very well knew, from the hour of his birth. 

Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she 
had formerly been of the late king, that lord knew that he him¬ 
self was attacked. So he said, in some confusion, “ Certainly, 
my lord, if they have done this, they be worthy of punish¬ 
ment.” 

“ If ? ” said the Duke of Gloucester. “ Do you talk to me 
of ifs ? I tell you that they have so done ; and I will make it 
good upon thy body, thou traitor! ” 

With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. 
This was a signal to some of his people outside to cry “ Trea¬ 
son ! ” They immediately did so, and there was a rush into 
the chamber of so many armed men that it was filled in a 
moment. 

“ First,” said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, “ I 
arrest thee, traitor! And let him,” he added to the armed men 
who took him, u have a priest at once; for, by St. Paul, I will 
not dine until I have seen his head off! ” 

Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, 
and there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying 
on the ground. Then the duke dined with a good appetite; 
and after dinner, summoning the principal citizens to attend 
him, told them that Lord Hastings, and the rest, had designed 
to murder both himself and the Duke of Buckingham, who 
stood by his side, if he had not providentially discovered their 


222 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


design. He requested them to be so obliging as to inform their 
fellow-citizens of the truth of what he said, and issued a pro¬ 
clamation (prepared and neatly copied out beforehand) to the 
same effect. 

On the same day that the duke did these things in the Tower, 
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his 
men, went down to Pontefract, arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, 
and two other gentlemen; and publicly executed them on the 
scaffold, without any trial, for having intended the duke’s death. 
Three days afterwards, the duke, not to lose time, went down 
the river to Westminster in his barge, attended by divers 
bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded that the queen 
should deliver her second son, the Duke of York, into his safe¬ 
keeping. The queen, being obliged to comply, resigned the 
child after she had wept over him ; and Richard of Gloucester 
placed him with his brother in the Tower. Then he seized 
Jane Shore; and, because she had been the lover of the late 
king, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced to do 
public penance in the streets, by walking, in a scanty dress, 
with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, through the most crowded part of the city. 

Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he 
caused a friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in 
front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the pro¬ 
fligate manners of the late king, and upon the late shame of 
Jane Shore, and hinted that the princes were not his children. 
“ Whereas, good people,” said the friar, whose name was Shaw, 
11 my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of Gloucester, that 
sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the per¬ 
fect image and express likeness of his father.” There had been 
a little plot between the duke and the friar, that the duke 
should appear in the crowd at this moment, when it was ex¬ 
pected that the people would cry, “ Long live King Richard ! ” 
But either through the friar saying the words too soon, or 
through the duke’s coming too late, the duke and the words did 
not come together, and the people only laughed, and the friar 
sneaked off ashamed. 

The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such business 
than the friar ; so he went to the Guildhall the next day, and 
addressed the citizens in the Lord Protector’s behalf. A few 
dirty men, who had been hired and stationed there for the pur- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 223 

pose, crying, when he had done, “ God save King Richard!” 
he made them a great how, and thanked them with all his heart. 
Next day, to make an end of it, he went with the mayor and 
some lords and citizens to Bayard Castle, by the river, where 
Richard then was, and read an address, humbly entreating him 
to accept the crown of England. Richard, who looked down 
upon them out of a window, and pretended to be in great uneasi¬ 
ness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desired less, 
and that his deep affection for his nephews forbade him to think 
of it. To this the Duke of Buckingham replied, with pretended 
warmth, that the free people of England would never submit to 
his nephew’s rule ; and that if Richard, who was the lawful 
heir, refused the crown, why then they must find some one else 
to wear it. The Duke of Gloucester returned, that since he used 
that strong language, it became his painful duty to think no 
more of himself, and to accept the crown. 

Upon that the people cheered and dispersed ; and the Duke 
of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant 
evening, talking over the play they had just actechwith so much 
success, and every word of which they had prepared together. 


224 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTEK XXV 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD 

King Kichard the Third was up betimes in the morning, 
and went to Westminster Hall. In the hall was a marble 
seat, upon which he sat himself down between two great noble¬ 
men, and told the people that he began the new reign in that 
place, because the first duty of a sovereign was to administer the 
laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. He then mounted 
his horse, and rode back to the city, where he was received by 
the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right to the throne, 
and really were a just man. The clergy and the crowd must 
have been rather ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for 
being such poor-spirited knaves. 

The new king and his queen were soon crowned with a great 
deal of show and noise, which the people liked very much; and 
then the king set forth on a royal progress through his domin¬ 
ions. He was crowned a second time at York, in order that the 
people might have show and noise enough ; and wherever he 
went was received with shouts of rejoicing, — from a good many 
people of strong lungs, who were paid to strain their throats in 
crying “ God save King Kichard ! ” The plan was so success¬ 
ful, that I am told it has been imitated since, by other usurpers, 
in other progresses through other dominions. 

While he was on this journey, King Kichard stayed a week at 
Warwick. And from Warwick he sent instructions home for 
one of the wickedest murders that ever was done, — the murder 
of the two young princes, his nephews, who were shut up in the 
Tower of London. 

Sir Kobert Brackenbury was at that time governor of the 
Tower. To him, by the hands of a messenger named John 
Green, did King Kichard send a letter, ordering him by some 
means to put the two young princes to death. But Sir Kobert 

— I hope because he had children of his own, and loved them 

— sent John Green back again, riding and spurring along the 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


225 


dusty roads, with the answer that he could not do so horrible a 
piece of work. The king, having frowningly considered a little, 
called to him Sir James Tyrrel, his master of the horse, and to 
him gave authority to take command of the Tower, whenever 
he would, for twenty-four hours, and to keep all the keys of 
the Tower during that space of time. Tyrrel, well knowing 
what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened ruffians, 
and chose John Dighton, one of his own grooms, and Miles 
Forest, who was a murderer by trade. Having secured these 
two assistants, he went upon a day in August to the Tower, 
showed his authority from the king, took the command for 
four-and-twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. 
And when the black night came, he went creeping, creeping, 
like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark stone winding stairs, 
and along the dark stone passages, until he came to the door 
of the room where the two young princes, having said their 
prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other’s arms. And 
while he watched and listened at the door, he sent in those evil 
demons, John Dighton and Miles Forest, who smothered the 
two princes with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies 
down the stairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones 
at the staircase foot. And when the day came, he gave up 
the command of the Tower, and restored the keys, and hurried 
away without once looking behind him ; and Sir Robert Brack- 
enbury went with fear and sadness to the princes’ room, and 
found the princes gone for ever. 

You know through all this history, how true it is that 
traitors are never true; and you will not be surprised to learn 
that the Duke of Buckingham soon turned against King 
Richard, and joined a great conspiracy that was formed to 
dethrone him, and to place the crown upon its rightful owner’s 
head. Richard had meant to keep the murder secret; but 
when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, 
and that many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the 
healths of the two young princes in the Tower, he made it 
known that they were dead. The conspirators, though thwarted 
for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown, against 
the murderous Richard, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson of 
Catherine, that widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen 
Tudor. And as Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they 
proposed that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the 


226 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


eldest daughter of the late king, now the heiress of the house 
of York, and thus by uniting the rival families put an end to 
the fatal wars of the Red and White Roses. All being settled, 
a time was appointed for Henry to come over from Brittany and 
for a great rising against Richard to take place in several parts 
of England at the same hour. On a certain day, therefore, in 
October, the revolt took place; hut unsuccessfully. Richard 
was prepared, Henry was driven hack at sea by a storm, his 
followers in England were dispersed, and the Duke of Bucking¬ 
ham was taken, and at once beheaded in the market-place at 
Salisbury. 

The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, 
for summoning a Parliament, and getting some money. So a 
Parliament was called; and it flattered and fawned upon him as 
much as he could possibly desire, and declared him to he the 
rightful king of England, and his only son Edward, then eleven 
years of age, the next heir to the throne. 

Richard knew full well that, let the Parliament say what it 
would, the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the 
heiress of the house of York; and having accurate information 
besides, of its being designed by the conspirators to marry her 
to Henry of Richmond, he felt that it would much strengthen 
him and weaken them, to he beforehand with them, and marry 
her to his son. With this view he went to the sanctuary at 
Westminster, where the late king’s widow and her daughter 
still were, and besought them to come to court; where (he 
swore by anything and everything) they should be safely and 
honourably entertained. They came accordingly; hut had 
scarcely been at court a month when his son died suddenly, — 
or was poisoned, — and his plan was crushed to pieces. 

In this extremity King Richard, always active, thought, u I 
must make another plan.” And he made the plan of marrying 
the Princess Elizabeth himself, although she was his niece. 
There was one difficulty in the way : his wife, the Queen Anne, 
was alive. But he knew (remembering his nephews) how to 
remove that obstacle; and he made love to the Princess Eliza¬ 
beth, telling her he felt perfectly confident that the queen 
would die in February. The princess was not a very scrupulous 
young lady: for instead of rejecting the murderer of her 
brothers with scorn and hatred, she openly declared she loved 
him dearly ; and when February came, and the queen did not 







BOSWORTH FIELD 





























































































































































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 227 

die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she was too long 
about it. However, King Richard was not so far out in his 
prediction but that she died in March, — he took good care of 
that; and then this precious pair hoped to be married. But 
they were disappointed ; for the idea of such a marriage was so 
unpopular in the country that the king’s chief counsellors, Rat- 
cliffe and Catseby, would by no means undertake to propose 
it, and the king was even obliged to declare in public that he 
had never thought of such a thing. 

He was by this time dreaded and hated by all classes of his 
subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry’s side 5 he 
dared not call another Parliament, lest his crimes should be 
denounced there; and for want of money, he was obliged to 
get “ benevolences ” from the citizens, which exasperated them 
all against him. It was said too, that, being stricken by his 
conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up in 
the night-time, wild with terror and remorse. Active to the 
last through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations against 
Henry of Richmond and all his followers, when he heard that 
they were coming against him with a fleet from Prance, and 
took the field as fierce and savage as a wild boar, — the animal 
represented on his shield. 

Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford 
Haven, and came on against King Richard, then encamped at 
Leicester with an army twice as great, through North Wales. 
On Bosworth Field the two armies met; and Richard, looking 
along Henry’s ranks, and seeing them crowded with the English 
nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale when he beheld the 
powerful Lord Stanley and his son (whom he had tried hard to 
retain) among them. But he was as brave as he was wicked, 
and plunged into the thickest of the fight. He w r as riding 
hither and thither, laying about him in all directions, when he 
observed the Earl of Northumberland — one of his few great 
allies — to stand inactive, and the main body of his troops to hesi¬ 
tate. At the same moment, his desperate glance caught Henry 
of Richmond among a little group of his knights. Riding hard 
at him, and crying, u Treason ! ” he killed his standard-bearer, 
fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful 
stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But Sir William 
Stanley parried it as it fell; and, before Richard could raise his 
arm again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, unhorsed, 


228 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown, all bruised and 
trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon Richmond’s 
head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of “ Long live King 
Henry ! ” 

That night, a horse was led up to the Church of the Grey 
Friars at Leicester, across whose back was tied, like some worth¬ 
less sack, a naked body brought there for burial. It was the 
body of the last of the Plantagenet line, King Richard the 
Third, usurper and murderer, slain at the battle of Bosworth 
Field in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of two 
years. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


229 


CHAPTER, XXVI 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH 

King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine 
a fellow as the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of 
their deliverance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, 
crafty, and calculating, and would do almost anything for money. 
He possessed considerable ability ; but his chief merit appears 
to have been that he was not cruel when there was nothing to 
be got by it. 

The new king had promised the nobles who had espoused his 
cause that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first 
thing he did was to direct her to be removed from the castle 
of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her, 
and restored to the care of her mother in London. The young 
Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of the late 
Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner in the same old 
Yorkshire castle with her. This boy, who was now fifteen, the 
new king placed in the Tower for safety. Then he came to 
London in great state, and gratified the people with a fine 
procession; on which kind of show he often very much relied 
for keeping them in good-humour. The sports and feasts which 
took place were followed by a terrible fever, called the sweating 
sickness ; of which great numbers of people died. Lord mayors 
and aldermen are thought to have suffered most from it; whether 
because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves, or be¬ 
cause they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisances 
in the city (as they have been since), I don’t know. 

The king’s coronation was postponed on account of the general 
ill-health ; and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he 
were not very anxious that it should take place ; and, even 
after that, deferred the queen’s coronation so long that he gave 
offence to the York party. However, he set these things right 
in the end, by hanging some men, and seizing on the rich 
possessions of others, by granting more popular pardons to the 
followers of the late king than could at first be got from him; 


230 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and by employing about his court some not very scrupulous 
persons who had been employed in the previous reign. 

As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious 
impostures which have become famous in history, we will make 
those two stories its principal feature. 

There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had 
for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of 
a baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly 
to carry out the designs of a secret party formed against the 
king, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was no other 
than the young Earl of Warwick, who (as everybody might 
have known) was safely locked up in the Tower of London. 
The priest and the boy went over to Ireland ; and at Dublin 
enlisted in their cause all ranks of the people, who seem to 
have been generous enough, but exceedingly irrational. The 
Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland, declared that he 
believed the boy to be what the priest represented ; and the 
boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such 
things of his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions 
of the royal family, that they were perpetually shouting and 
hurrahing, and drinking his health, and making all kinds of 
noisy and thirsty demonstrations to express their belief in him. 
Nor was this feeling confined to Ireland alone; for the Earl of 
Lincoln, whom the late usurper had named as his successor, 
went over to the young pretender ; and, after holding a secret 
correspondence with the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the 
sister of Edward the Fourth, who detested the present king 
and all his race, sailed to Dublin with two thousand German 
soldiers of her providing. In this promising state of the boy’s 
fortunes, he was crowned there, with a crown taken off the head 
of a statue of the Virgin Mary ; and was then, according to 
the Irish custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders 
of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more strength than 
sense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at 
the coronation. 

Ten days afterwards, the Germans and the Irish, and the 
priest and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lan¬ 
cashire to invade England. The king, who had good intelligence 
of their movements, set up his standard at Nottingham, where 
vast numbers resorted to him every day, while the Earl of 
Lincoln could gain but very few. With his small force he tried 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


231 


to make for the town of Newark ; but the king’s army getting 
between him and that place, he had no choice hut to risk a 
battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the complete destruction of 
the pretender’s forces, one half of whom were killed ; among 
them the earl himself. The priest and the baker’s boy were 
taken prisoners. The priest, after confessing the trick, was shut 
up in prison, where he afterwards died, — suddenly perhaps. 
The hoy was taken into the king’s kitchen, and made a turnspit. 
He was afterwards raised to the station of one of the king’s 
falconers ; and so ended this strange imposition. 

There seems reason to suspect that the dowager queen — 
always a restless and busy woman — had had some share in 
tutoring the baker’s son. The king was very angry with her, 
whether or no. He seized upon her property, and shut her up 
in a convent at Bermondsey. 

One might suppose that the end of this story would have put 
the Irish people on their guard; hut they were quite ready to 
receive a second impostor, as they had received the first, and 
that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them 
the opportunity. All of a sudden there appeared at Cork, 
in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of excellent 
abilities, of very handsome appearance and most winning man¬ 
ners, who declared himself to he Bichard, Duke of York, the 
second son of King Edward the Fourth. u Oh,” said some, 
even of those ready Irish believers, u but surely that young 
prince was murdered by his uncle in the tower ! ” — “ It is sup¬ 
posed so,” said the engaging young man; “ and my brother 
was killed in that gloomy prison; hut I escaped, — it don’t 
matter how at present, — and have been wandering about the 
world for seven long years.” This explanation being quite sat¬ 
isfactory to numbers of the Irish people, they began again to 
shout and to hurrah, and to drink his health, and to make the 
noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. And the big 
chieftain in Dublin began to look out for another coronation, 
and another young king to be carried home on his back. 

Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, the 
French king, Charles the Eighth, saw, that, by pretending to 
believe in the handsome young man, he could trouble his enemy 
sorely. So he invited him over to the French court, and 
appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all respects as 
if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, however, being 


232 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


soon concluded between the two kings, the pretended duke was 
turned adrift, and wandered for protection to the Duchess of 
Burgundy. She, after feigning to inquire into the reality of 
his claims, declared him to be the very picture of her dear 
departed brother, gave him a body-guard at her court of thirty 
halberdiers, and called him by the sounding name of the White 
Bose of England. 

The leading members of the White Bose party in England 
sent over an agent, named Sir Bobert Clifford, to ascertain 
whether the White Bose’s claims were good; the king also sent 
over his agents to inquire into the Bose’s history. The White 
Boses declared the young man to be really the Duke of York ; 
the king declared him to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a mer¬ 
chant of the city of Tournay, who had acquired his knowledge 
of England, its language and manners, from the English mer¬ 
chants who traded in Flanders; it was also stated by the royal 
agents that he had been in the service of Lady Brompton, the 
wife of an exiled English nobleman, and that the Duchess of 
Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught expressly 
for this deception. The king then required the Archduke 
Philip — who was the sovereign of Burgundy — to banish this 
new pretender, or to deliver him up ; but as the archduke 
replied that he could not control the duchess in her own land, 
the king, in revenge, took the market of English cloth away 
from Antwerp, and prevented all commercial intercourse between 
the two countries. 

He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Bobert Clifford 
to betray his employers; and he denouncing several famous 
English noblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin War- 
beck, the king had three of the foremost executed at once. 
Whether he pardoned the remainder because they were poor, I 
do not know; but it is only too probable that he refused to 
pardon one famous nobleman against- whom the same Clifford 
soon afterwards informed separately, because he was rich. This 
was no other than Sir William Stanley, who had saved the 
king’s life at the battle of Bosworth Field. It is very doubtful 
whether his treason amounted to much more than his having 
said that, if he were sure the young man was the Duke of 
York, he would not take arms against him. Whatever he had 
done he admitted, like an honourable spirit; and he lost his 
head for it, and the covetous king gained all his wealth. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


233 


Perkin War beck kept quiet for three years; but as the 
Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade 
by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, and as it 
was not unlikely that they might even go so far as to take his 
life, or give him up, he found it necessary to do something. 
Accordingly, he made a desperate sally, and landed, with only a 
few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. But he was soon glad 
to get back to the place from whence he came; for the country 
people rose against his followers, killed a great many, and took 
a hundred and fifty prisoners, who were all driven to London, 
tied together with ropes, like a team of cattle. Every one of 
them was hanged on some part or other of the sea-shore, in 
order that, if any more men should come over with Perkin 
Warbeck, they might see the bodies as a warning before they 
landed. 

Then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce with 
the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country ; and, 
by completely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived him 
of that asylum too. He wandered away to Scotland, and told 
his story at that court. King James the Fourth of Scotland, 
who was no friend to King Henry, and had no reason to be (for 
King Henry had bribed his Scotch lords to betray him more 
than once, but had never succeeded in his plots), gave him a 
great reception, called him his cousin, and gave him in marriage 
the Lady Catherine Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature, 
related to the royal house of Stuart. 

Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the pretender, 
the king still undermined and bought and bribed, and kept his 
doings and Perkin Warbeck’s story in the dark, when he might, 
one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all Eng¬ 
land. But for all this bribing of the Scotch lords, at the Scotch 
king’s court, he could not procure the pretender to be delivered 
up to him. James, though not very particular in many re¬ 
spects, would not betray him; and the ever-busy Duchess of 
Burgundy so provided him with arms and good soldieis, and 
with money besides, that he had soon a little army of fifteen 
hundred men of various nations. With these, and aided by the 
Scottish king in person, he crossed the Border into England, and 
made a proclamation to the people ; in which he called the king 
“ Henry Tudor,” offered large rewards to any one who should 
take or distress him, and announced himself as King Richard 


234 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the Fourth, come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. 
His faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hated 
his faithful troops, who, being of different nations, quarrelled 
also among themselves. Worse than this, if worse were pos¬ 
sible, they began to plunder the country; upon which the 
White Rose said, that he would rather lose his rights than gain 
them through the miseries of the English people. The Scottish 
king made a jest of his scruples ; but they and theii whole force 
went back again without fighting a battle. 

The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took 
place among the people of Cornwall, who considered themselves 
too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the expected war. 
Stimulated by Elammock a lawyer, and Joseph a blacksmith, 
and joined by Lord Audley and some other country gentlemen, 
they marched on all the way to Deptford Bridge, where they 
fought a battle with the king’s army. They were defeated, 
though the Cornish men fought with great bravery; and the 
lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and the blacksmith were 
hanged, drawn, and quartered. The rest were pardoned. The 
king, who believed every man to be as avaricious as himself, and 
thought that money could settle anything, allowed them to make 
bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had taken 
them. 

Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never 
to find rest anywhere, — a sad fate, almost a sufficient punish¬ 
ment for an imposture which he seems in time to have half 
believed himself, — lost his Scottish refuge through a truce 
being made between the two kings, and found himself once more 
without a country before him in which he could lay his head. 
But James (always honourable and true to him, alike when he 
melted down his plate, and even the great gold chain he had 
been used to wear, to pay soldiers in his cause, and now, when 
that cause was lost and hopeless) did not conclude the treaty 
until he had safely departed out of the Scottish dominions. He 
and his beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all re¬ 
verses, and left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, 
were put aboard ship with everything necessary for their com¬ 
fort and protection, and sailed for Ireland. 

But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls of 
Warwick and Dukes of York for one while, and would give the 
White Rose no aid. So the White Rose — encircled by thorns 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


235 


indeed — resolved to go with his beautiful wife to Cornwall as 
a forlorn resource, and see what might he made of the Cornish 
men, who had risen so valiantly a little while before, and who 
had fought so bravely at Deptford Bridge. 

To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin 
Warbeck and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for 
safety in the castle of St. Michael’s Mount, and then marched 
into Devonshire at the head of three thousand Cornish men. 
These were increased to six thousand by the time of his arrival 
in Exeter; hut there the people made a stout resistance, and 
he went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the king’s 
army. The stout Cornish men, although they were few in 
number, and badly armed, were so bold that they never thought 
of retreating, but bravely looked forward to a battle on the 
morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who was possessed of 
so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people 
to his side when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, 
was not as brave as they. In the night, when the two armies 
lay opposite to each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. 
When morning dawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, dis¬ 
covering that they had no leader, surrendered to the king’s 
power. Some of them were hanged, and the rest were pardoned, 
and went miserably home. 

Before the king pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of 
Beaulieu in the New Forest, where it was soon known that he 
had taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael’s 
Mount to seize his wife. She was soon taken, and brought as 
a captive before the king. But she was so beautiful and so 
good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed, that 
the king regarded her with compassion, treated her with great 
respect, and placed her at court, near the queen’s person. And 
many years after Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his 
strange story had become like a nursery tale, she was called the 
White Eose, by the people, in remembrance of her beauty. 

The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the king’s 
men ; and the king, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent 
pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come 
out and surrender himself. This he soon did; the king having 
taken a good look at the man of whom he had heard so much, 
from behind a screen, directed him to be well mounted, and to 
ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in 


236 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


any way. So they entered London with the king’s favourite 
show, — a procession ; and some of the people hooted as the 
pretender rode slowly through the streets to the Tower, hut the 
greater part were quiet, and very curious to see him. From 
the Tower he was taken to the palace at Westminster, and 
there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched. He was 
examined every now and then as to his imposture; hut the king 
was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it a conse¬ 
quence which it cannot he supposed to have in itself deserved. 

At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another 
sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again 
persuaded to deliver himself up ; and, being conveyed to London, 
he stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside Westminster 
Hall, and there read a paper purporting to he his full confes¬ 
sion, and relating his history as the king’s agents had originally 
described it. He was then shut up in the Tower again, in 
the company of the Earl of Warwick, who had now been there 
for fourteen years, — ever since his removal out of Yorkshire, 
except when the king had had him at court, and had shown 
him to the people, to prove the imposture of the baker’s boy. 
It is but too probable, when we consider the crafty character of 
Henry the Seventh, that these two were brought together for 
a cruel purpose. A plot was soon discovered between them and 
the keepers, to murder the governor, get possession of the keys, 
and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King Richard the Fourth. 
That there was some such plot is likely ; that they were tempted 
into it is at least as likely ; that the unfortunate Earl of War¬ 
wick — last male of the Plantagenet line — was too unused 
to the world, and too ignorant and simple to know much about 
it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain ; and that it was the 
king’s interest to get rid of him is no less so. He was beheaded 
on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn. 

Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose 
shadowy history was made more shadowy, and ever will be, by 
the mystery and craft of the king. If he had turned his great 
natural advantages to a more honest account, he might have 
lived a happy and respected life, even in those days; but he 
died upon a gallows at Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady, who 
had loved him so well, kindly protected at the queen’s court. 
After some time she forgot her old loves and troubles, as many 
people do with Time’s merciful assistance, and married a Welsh 




A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


237 


gentleman. Her second husband, Sir Matthew Cradoc, more 
honest and more happy than her first, lies beside her in a tomb 
in the old church of Swansea. 

The ill-blood between Trance and England, in this reign, 
arose out of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Bur¬ 
gundy, and disputes respecting the affairs of Brittany. The 
king feigned to be very patriotic, indignant, and warlike ; but 
he always contrived so as never to make war in reality, and 
always to make money. His taxation of the people, on pre¬ 
tence of war with France, involved at one time a very danger¬ 
ous insurrection, headed by Sir John Egremont, and a common 
man called John a Chambre. But it was subdued by the royal 
forces, under the command of the Earl of Surrey. The knighted 
John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy, who was ever ready 
to receive any one who gave the king trouble; and the plain 
John was hanged at York, in the midst of a number of his 
men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor. 
Hung high or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to 
the person hung. 

Within a year after her marriage, the queen had given birth 
to a son, who was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the 
old British prince of romance and story; and who, when all 
these events had happened, being then in his fifteenth year, 
was married to Catherine, the daughter of the Spanish monarch, 
with great rejoicings and bright prospects; but in a very few 
months he sickened and died. As soon as the king had recov¬ 
ered from his grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the 
Spanish princess, amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, 
should go out of the family; and therefore arranged that the 
young widow should marry his second son, Henry, then twelve 
years of age, when he, too, should be fifteen. There were ob¬ 
jections to this marriage on the part of the clergy ; but as the 
infallible Pope was gained over, and as he must be right, that 
settled the business for the time. The king’s eldest daughter 
was provided for, and a long course of disturbance was consid¬ 
ered to be set at rest, by her being married to the Scottish king. 

And now the queen died. When the king had got over that 
grief, too, his mind once more reverted to his darling money 
for consolation, and he thought of marrying the Dowager Queen 
of Naples, who was immensely rich; but as it turned out not 
to be practicable to gain the money, however practicable it 


238 


A CHILD’S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 


might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. He 
was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the 
Dowager Duchess of Savoy; and, soon afterwards, the widow 
of the King of Castile, who was raving mad. But he made a 
money-bargain instead, and married neither. 

The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented 
people to whom she had given refuge, had sheltered Edmund de 
la Pole (younger brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was 
killed at Stoke), now Earl of Suffolk. The king had prevailed 
upon him to return to the marriage of Prince Arthur ; but he 
soon afterwards went away again; and then the king, suspect¬ 
ing a conspiracy, resorted to his favourite plan of sending him 
some treacherous friends, and buying of those scoundrels the 
secrets they disclosed or invented. Some arrests and executions 
took place in consequence. In the end, the king, on a promise 
of not taking his life, obtained possession of the person of 
Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the Tower. 

This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he 
would have made many more among the people, by the grind¬ 
ing exaction to which he constantly exposed them, and by the 
tyrannical acts of his two prime favourites in all money-raising 
matters, Edmund Dudley and Bichard Empson. But Death — 
the enemy who is not to be bought off or deceived, and on whom 
no money and no treachery has any effect — presented himself 
at this juncture, and ended the king’s reign. He died of the 
gout, on the 22d of April, 1509, and in the fifty-third year of 
his age, after reigning twenty-four years. He was buried in 
the beautiful chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had him¬ 
self founded, and which still bears his name. 

It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus, on 
behalf of Spain, discovered what was then called the new world. 
Great wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened 
in England thereby, the king and the merchants of London and 
Bristol fitted out an English expedition for further discoveries 
in the New World, and intrusted it to Sebastian Cabot of Bris¬ 
tol, the son of a Venetian pilot there. He was very successful 
in his voyage, and gained high reputation, both for himself and 
England. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


239 


CHAPTER XXVII 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING HAL, 

AND BURLY KING HARRY 

PART THE FIRST 

We now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been 
too much the fashion to call “ Bluff King Hal/’ and “ Burly 
King Harry,” and other, fine names ; but whom I shall take the 
liberty to call plainly one of the most detestable villains that 
ever drew breath. You will he able to judge, long before we 
come to the end of his life, whether he deserves the character. 

He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the 
throne. People said he was handsome then; hut I don’t 
believe it. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, 
double-chinned, swinish-looking fellow, in later life (as we 
know from the likenesses of him, painted by the famous Hans 
Holbein) ; and it is not easy to believe that so bad a character 
can ever have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance. 

He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, 
who had long disliked the late king, were very willing to 
believe that he deserved to he so. He was extremely fond of 
show and display, and so were they. Therefore there was great 
rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine, and when 
they were both crowned. And the king fought at tournaments, 
and always came off victorious, — for the courtiers took care of 
that; and there was a general outcry that he was a wonderful 
man. Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were accused of a 
variety of crimes they had never committed, instead of the 
offences of which they really had been guilty; and they were 
pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the tails, and 
knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, 
and the enrichment of the king. 

The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, 
had mixed himself up in a war on the Continent of Europe, 


240 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


occasioned by the reigning princes of little quarrelling states in 
Italy having at various times married into other royal families, 
and so led to tlieir claiming a share in those petty governments. 
The king, who discovered that he was very fond of the Pope, 
sent a herald to the king of France to say that he must not 
make war upon that holy personage, because he was the father 
of all Christians. As the French king did not mind this rela¬ 
tionship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim King 
Henry made to certain lands in France, war was declared 
between the two countries. Hot to perplex this story with an 
account of the tricks and designs of all the sovereigns who were 
engaged in it, it is enough to say that England made a blun¬ 
dering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by that 
country, which made its own terms with France when it could, 
and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, a bold 
admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by 
his bravery against the French in this business; but unfortu¬ 
nately, he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the 
French harbour of Brest with only a few rowboats, he attempted 
(in revenge for the defeat and death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, 
another bold English admiral) to take some strong French ships, 
well defended with batteries of cannon. The upshot was, that 
he was left on board of one of them (in consequence of its 
shooting away from his own boat), with not more than about 
a dozen men, and was thrown into the sea and drowned, — 
though not until he had taken from his breast his gold chain 
and gold whistle, which were the signs of his office, and had 
cast them into the sea to prevent their being made a boast of 
by the enemy. After this defeat, — which was a great one, 
for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valour and fame, — the 
king took it into his head to invade France in person ; first 
executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk, whom his father had 
left in the Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge 
of his kingdom in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he 
was joined by Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, who pretended 
to be his soldier, and who took pay in his service, — with a 
good deal of nonsense of that sort, flattering enough to the 
vanity of a vain blusterer. The king might be successful 
enough in sham flights ; but his idea of real battles chiefly 
consisted in pitching silken tents of bright colours, that were 
ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in making a vast 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 241 

display of gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune, however, 
favoured him better than he deserved; for after much waste 
of time in tent-pitching, flag-flying, gold-curtaining, and other 
such masquerading, he gave the French battle at a place called 
Guinegate : where they took such an unaccountable panic, and 
fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by 
the English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his 
advantage, the king, finding that he had had enough of real 
fighting, came home again. 

The Scottish king, though nearly related to Henry by mar¬ 
riage, had taken part against him in this war. The Earl of 
Surrey, as the English general, advanced to meet him when he 
came out of his own dominions, and crossed the river Tweed. 
The two armies came up with one another when the Scottish 
king had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped upon 
the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the Hill of Flodden. 
Along the plain below it, the English, when the hour of battle 
came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been drawn 
up in five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect 
silence. So they, in their turn, advanced to meet the English 
army, which came on in one long line; and they attacked it 
with a body of spearmen, under Lord Home. At first they 
had the best of it; but the English recovered themselves so 
bravely, and fought with such valour, that, when the Scottish 
king had almost made his way up to the royal standard, he was 
slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand 
Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden Field ; and among 
them numbers of the nobility and gentry. For a long time 
afterwards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their 
king had not been really killed in this battle, because no Eng¬ 
lishman had found an iron belt he wore about his body as a 
penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. But 
whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and 
dagger, and the ring from his finger, and his body too, covered 
with wounds. There is no doubt of it; for it was seen and 
recognised by English gentlemen who had known the Scottish 
king well. 

When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in 
France, the French king was contemplating peace. His queen 
dying at this time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty 
years old, to marry King Henry’s sister, the Princess Mary, 


242 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


who, besides being only sixteen, was betrothed to the Duke of 
Suffolk. As the inclinations of young princesses were not much 
considered in such matters, the marriage was concluded, and 
the poor girl was escorted to France, where she was immedi¬ 
ately left as the French king’s bride, with only one of all her 
English attendants. That one was a pretty young girl named 
Anne Boleyn, niece of the Earl of Surrey, who had been made 
Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of Flodden Field. Anne 
Boleyn’s is a name to be remembered, as you will presently 
find. 

And now the French king, who was very proud of his young 
wife, was preparing for many years of happiness, and she was 
looking forward, I dare say, to many years of misery, when he 
died within three months, and left her a young widow. The 
new French monarch, Francis the First, seeing how important 
it was to his interests that she should take for her second hus¬ 
band no one but an Englishman, advised her first lover, the 
Duke of Suffolk, when King Henry sent him over to France to 
fetch her home, to marry her. The princess being herself so 
fond of that duke as to tell him that he must either do so then, 
or for ever lose her, they were wedded; and Henry afterwards 
forgave them. In making interest with the king, the Duke of 
Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favourite and adviser, 
Thomas Wolsey, — a name very famous in history for its rise 
and downfall. 

Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in 
Suffolk, and received so excellent an education that he became 
a tutor to the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards 
got him appointed one of the late king’s chaplains. On the 
accession of Henry the Eighth, he was promoted, and taken into 
great favour. He was now Archbishop of York; the Pope had 
made him a cardinal besides; and whoever wanted influence in 
England, or favour with the king, — whether he were a foreign 
monarch or an English nobleman, — was obliged to make a 
friend of the great Cardinal Wolsey. 

He was a gay man, who could dance and jest and sing and 
drink; and those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, 
of a heart as King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of 
pomp and glitter; and so was the king. He knew a good deal 
of the Church learning of that time; much of which consisted 
in finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


243 


thing, and in arguing that black was white, or any other colour. 
This kind of learning pleased the king too. For many such 
reasons, the cardinal was high in estimation with the king; and, 
being a man of far greater ability, knew as well how to manage 
him, as a clever keeper may know how to manage a wolf or a 
tiger, or any other cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon 
him and tear him any day. Never had there been seen in 
England such state as my lord cardinal kept. His wealth was 
enormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the crown. 
His palaces were as splendid as the king’s, and his retinue was 
eight hundred strong. He held his court, dressed out from top 
to toe in flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set 
with precious stones. His followers rode on blood horses; while 
he, with a wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of his 
great splendour, ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and 
bridle and golden stirrups. 

Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting 
was arranged to take place between the French and English 
kings in France, but on ground belonging to England. A pro¬ 
digious show' of friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the 
occasion; and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trum¬ 
pets through all the principal cities of Europe, that, on a cer¬ 
tain day, the kings of France and England, as companions and 
brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen followers, would 
hold a tournament against all knights who might choose to 
come. 

Charles, the new emperor of Germany (the old one being 
dead), wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these 
sovereigns, and came over to England before the king could 
repair to the place of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable 
impression upon him, secured Wolsey’s interest by promising 
that his influence should make him pope, when the next vacancy 
occurred. On the day when the emperor left England, the 
king and all the court went over to Calais, and thence to the 
place of meeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly 
called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here all manner of 
expense and prodigality was lavished on the decorations of the 
show; many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly 
dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates upon 
their shoulders. 

There w^ere sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains run- 


244 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


ning wine, great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, 
silk tents, gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without 
end ; and, in the midst of all, the rich cardinal out-shone and 
out-glittered all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After 
a treaty made between the two kings, with as much solemnity 
as if they had intended to keep it, the lists, nine hundred feet 
long and three hundred and twenty broad, were opened for the 
tournament; the queens of France and England looking on 
with great array of lords and ladies. Then for ten days the two 
sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their 
polite adversaries; though they do write that the king of Eng¬ 
land, being thrown in a wrestle one day by the king of France, 
lost his kingly temper with his brother in arms, and wanted to 
make a quarrel of it. Then there is a great story belonging to 
this Field of the Cloth of Gold, showing how the English were 
distrustful of the French, and the French of the English, until 
Francis rode alone one morning to Henry’s tent, and, going in 
before he was out of bed, told him in joke that he was his 
prisoner; and how Henry jumped out of bed and embraced 
Francis, and how Francis helped Henry to dress and warmed his 
linen for him ; and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jewelled 
collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet. 
All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung 
about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that time 
too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it for ever. 

Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy 
renewal of the war between England and France, in which the 
two royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly 
to damage one another. But before it broke out again, the 
Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, 
on the evidence of a discharged servant, — really for nothing, 
except the folly of having believed in a friar of the name of 
Hopkins, who had pretended to be a prophet, and who had 
mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the duke’s son 
being destined to be very great in the land. It was believed 
that the unfortunate duke had given offence to the great cardinal 
by expressing his mind freely about the expense and absurdity 
of the whole business of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. At 
any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for nothing. And 
the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried out that 
it was the work of “ the butcher’s son ! ” 



FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD 













A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


245 


The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey 
invaded France again, and did some injury to that country. It 
ended in another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and 
in the discovery that the emperor of Germany was not such 
a good friend to England in reality as he pretended to be. 
Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to make him pope, 
though the king urged him. Two popes died in pretty quick 
succession ; hut the foreign priests were too much for the cardi¬ 
nal, and kept him out of the post. So the cardinal and king 
together found out that the emperor of Germany was not a man 
to keep faith with; broke off a projected marriage between the 
king’s daughter Mary, Princess of Wales, and that sovereign; 
and began to consider whether it might not he well to marry the 
young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his eldest son. 

There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great 
leader of the mighty change in England which is called the 
Reformation, and which set the people free from their slavery 
to the priests. This was a learned doctor, named Martin 
Luther, who knew all about them ; for he had been a- priest, 
and even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of 
Wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this subject; 
and Luther finding one day, to his great surprise, that there 
really was a book called the New Testament which the priests did 
not allow to be read, and which contained truths that they sup¬ 
pressed, began to be very vigorous against the whole body, from 
the Pope downward. It happened, while he was yet only begin¬ 
ning his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent 
fellow named Tetzel, a friar of very bad character, came into his 
neighbourhood selling what were called indulgences, by whole¬ 
sale, to raise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of St. 
Peter’s, at Rome. Whoever bought an indulgence of the Pope 
was supposed to buy himself off from the punishment of Heaven 
for his offences. Luther told the people that these indulgences 
were worthless hits of paper before God, and that Tetzel and 
his masters were a crew of impostors in selling them. 

The king and the cardinal were mightily indignant at this 
presumption ; and the king (with the help of Sir dhomas More, 
a wise man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) 
even wrote a hook about it, with which the Pope was so well 
pleased, that he gave the king the title of Defender of the Faith. 
The king and the cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the 


246 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


people not to read Luther’s books, on pain of excommunication. 
But they did read them for all that; and the rumour of what 
was in them spread far and wide. 

When this great change was thus going on, the king began to 
show himself in his truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, 
the pretty little girl who had gone abroad to France with his 
sister, was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was 
one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine. Now, 
Queen Catherine was no longer young or handsome, and it 
is likely that she was not particularly good tempered ; having 
been always rather melancholy, and having been made more so 
by the deaths of four of her children, when they were very 
young. So the king fell in love with the fair Anne Boleyn, 
and said to himself, “ How can I be best rid of my own trouble¬ 
some wife, whom I am tired of, and marry Anne ? ” 

You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of 
Henry’s brother. What does the king do, after thinking it 
over, but calls his favourite priests about him, and says, Oh! 
his mind is in such a dreadful state, and he is so frightfully 
uneasy, because he is afraid it was not lawful for him to marry 
the queen! Not one of those priests had the courage to hint 
that it was rather curious he had never thought of that before, 
and that his mind seemed to have been in a tolerably jolly con¬ 
dition during a great many years, in which he certainly had not 
fretted himself thin ; but they all said, Ah ! that was very true, 
and it was a serious business ; and perhaps the best way to 
make it right, would be for his Majesty to be divorced! The 
king replied, Yes ; he thought that would be the best way 
certainly ; so they all went to work. 

If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took 
place in the endeavour to get this divorce, you would think the 
“ History of England ” the most tiresome book in the world. So 
I shall say no more than, that, after a vast deal of negotiation 
and evasion, the Pope issued a commission to Cardinal Wolsey 
and Cardinal Campeggio (whom he sent over from Italy for the 
purpose) to try the whole case in England. It is supposed — 
and I think with reason — that Wolsey was the queen’s enemy, 
because she had reproved him for his proud and gorgeous man¬ 
ner of life. But he did not at first know that the king wanted 
to marry Anne Boleyn ; and when he did know it, he even 
went down on his knees, in the endeavour to dissuade him. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


247 


The cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black 
Friars, near to where the bridge of that name in London now 
stands; and the king and queen, that they might he near it, 
took up their lodgings at the adjoining palace of Bridewell, of 
which nothing now remains but a bad prison. On the opening 
of the court, when the king and queen were called on to appear, 
that poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and firmness, and yet 
with a womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went and 
kneeled at the king’s feet, and said that she had come a stran¬ 
ger to his dominions; that she had been a good and true wife 
to him for twenty years ; and that she could acknowledge no 
power in those cardinals to try whether she should be considered 
his wife after all that time, or should be put away. With that 
she got up and left the court, and would never afterwards come 
back to it. 

The king pretended to be very much overcome, and said, 0 
my lords and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, 
and how delighted he would be to live with her unto death, but 
for that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite Wearing 
him away ! So the case w T ent on, and there was nothing but 
talk for two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who, on be¬ 
half of the Pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned 
it for two more months; and before that time was elapsed, the 
Pope himself adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the king 
and queen to come to Borne and have it tried there. But by 
good luck for the king, word was brought to him by some of 
his people, that they had happened to meet at supper Thomas 
Cranmer, a learned doctor of Cambridge, who had proposed to 
urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the learned doctors 
and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting their 
opinions that the king’s marriage was unlawful. The king, 
who was now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought this 
such a good idea, that he sent for Cranmer, post-haste, and said 
to Lord Bochfort, Anne Boleyn’s father, “ Take this learned 
doctor down to your country-house, and there let him have a 
good room for a study, and no end of books out of which to 
prove that I may marry your daughter.” Lord Bochfort, not at 
all reluctant, made the learned doctor as comfortable as he 
could; and the learned doctor went to work to prove his case. 
All this time, the king and Anne Boleyn were writing letters 
to one another almost daily, full of impatience to have the case 


248 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


settled; and Anne Boleyn was showing herself (as I think) 
very worthy of the fate which afterwards befell her. 

It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to 
render this help. It was worse for him that he had tried 
to dissuade the king from marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a 
servant as he, to such a master as Henry, would probably have 
fallen in any case; hut between the hatred of the party of the 
queen that was, and the hatred of the party of the queen that 
was to he, he fell suddenly and heavily. Going down one day 
to the Court of Chancery, where he now presided, he was 
waited upon by the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who told 
him that they brought an order to him to resign that office, and 
to withdraw quietly to a house he had at Esher, in Surrey. 
The cardinal refusing, they rode off to the king; and next 
day came hack with a letter from him, on reading which the 
cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out of all the 
riches in his palace at York Place (now Whitehall), and he 
went sorrowfully up the river in his barge to Putney. An 
abject man he was, in spite of his pride; for being overtaken, 
riding out of that place towards Esher, by one of the king’s 
chamberlains who brought him a kind message and a ring, he 
alighted from his mule, took off his cap, and kneeled down in 
the dirt. His poor fool, whom in his prosperous days he had 
always kept in his palace to entertain him, cut a far better 
figure than he ; for when the cardinal said to the chamberlain 
that he had nothing to send to his lord the king as a present 
hut that jester, who was a most excellent one, it took six 
strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master. 

The once proud cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote 
the most abject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him 
one day and encouraged him the next, according to his humour, 
until he was at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of 
York. He said he was too poor ; but I don’t know how he 
made that out; for he took a hundred and sixty servants with 
him, and seventy-two cart-loads of furniture, food, and wine. 
He remained in that part of the country for the best part of a 
year, and showed himself so improved by his misfortunes, and 
was so mild and so conciliating, that he won all hearts. And 
indeed, even in his proud days, he had done some magnificent 
things for learning and education. At last lie was arrested for 
high treason ; and coming slowly on his journey towards Lon- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


249 


don, got as far as Leicester. Arriving at Leicester Abbey after 
dark, and very ill, lie said — when the monks came out at the 
gate with lighted torches to receive him — that he had come to 
lay his bones among them. He had indeed; for he was taken 
to a bed, from which he never rose again. His last words 
were, u Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the 
king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. How- 
beit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not 
regarding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince.” 
The news of his death was quickly carried to the king, who 
was amusing himself with archery in the garden of the mag¬ 
nificent palace at Hampton Court, which that very Wolsey 
had presented to him. The greatest emotion his royal mind 
displayed at the loss of a servant, so faithful and so ruined, 
was a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred pounds 
which the cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere. 

The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors 
and bishops and others, being at last collected, and being 
generally in the king’s favour, were forwarded to the Pope, 
with an entreaty that he would now grant it. The unfortunate 
Pope, who was a timid man, was half distracted between his 
fear of his authority being set aside in England if he did not 
do as he was asked, and his dread of offending the emperor of 
Germany, who was Queen Catherine’s nephew. In this state 
of mind he still evaded, and did nothing. Then Thomas 
Cromwell, who had been one of Wolsey’s faithful attendants, 
and had remained so even in his decline, advised the king to 
take the matter into his own hands, and make himself the head 
of the whole Church. This the king, by various artful means, 
began to do ; but he recompensed the clergy by allowing them 
to burn as many people as they pleased for holding Luther’s 
opinions. You must understand that Sir Thomas More, the 
wise man who had helped the king with his book, had been 
made Chancellor in Wolsey’s place. But as he was truly 
attached to the Church as it was, even in its abuses, he, in this 
state of things, resigned. 

Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and 
to marry Anne Boleyn without more ado, the king made Cran- 
mer Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine 
to leave the court. She obeyed; but replied that, wherever 
she went, she was queen of England still, and would remain so 


250 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


to the last. The king then married Anne Boleyn privately; 
and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, within half a year, 
declared his marriage with Queen Catherine void, and crowned 
Anne Boleyn queen. 

She might have known that no good could ever come from 
such wrong, and that the corpulent brute who had been so 
faithless and so cruel to his first wife could be more faithless 
and more cruel to his second. She might have known that, 
even when he was in love with her, he had been a mean and 
selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her 
society and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in 
it, and when she might easily have taken it and died, as several 
of the household did. But Anne Boleyn arrived at all this 
knowledge too late, and bought it at a dear price. Her bad 
marriage with a worse man came to its natural end. Its 
natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, a natural death 
for her. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


251 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
England under henry the eighth 
PART THE SECOND 

The Pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when 
he heard of the king’s marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many 
of the English monks and friars, seeing that their order was in 
danger, did the same; some even declaimed against the king 
in church before his face, and were not to be stopped until he 
himself roared out, “ Silence ! ” The king, not much the worse 
for this, took it pretty quietly; and was very glad when his 
queen gave birth to a daughter, who was christened Elizabeth, 
and declared Princess of Wales, as her sister Mary had already 
been. 

One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that 
Henry the Eighth was always trimming between the reformed 
religion and the unreformed one ; so that the more he quarrelled 
with the Pope, the more of his own subjects he roasted alive for 
not holding the Pope’s opinions. Thus, an unfortunate student 
named John Erith, and a poor simple tailor named Andrew 
Hewet who loved him very much, and said that whatever John 
Frith believed he believed, were burnt in Smithfield, — to show 
what a capital Christian the king was. 

But these were speedily followed by two much greater vic¬ 
tims, Sir Thomas More, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Roches¬ 
ter. The latter, who was a good and amiable old man, had 
committed no greater offence than believing in Elizabeth Barton, 
called the Maid of Kent, — another of those ridiculous women 
who pretended to he inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenly 
revelations, though they indeed uttered nothing hut evil non¬ 
sense. For this offence — as it was pretended, but really for 
denying the king to be the supreme head of the Church — 
he got into trouble, and was put in prison; hut even then, he 
might have been suffered to die naturally (short work having 


252 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


been made of executing the Kentish Maid and her principal fol¬ 
lowers), but that the Pope, to spite the king, resolved to make 
him a cardinal. Upon that the king made a ferocious joke to 
the effect that the Pope might send Pisher a red hat (which 
is the way they make a cardinal), but he should have no head 
on which to wear it; and he was tried with all unfairness and 
injustice, and sentenced to death. He died like a noble and 
virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behind him. The 
king supposed, I dare say, that Sir Thomas More would be 
frightened by this example ; but as he was not easily terrified, 
and, thoroughly believing in the Pope, had made up his mind 
that the king was not the rightful head of the Church, he posi¬ 
tively refused to say that he was. For this crime he, too, was 
tried and sentenced, after having been in prison a whole year. 
When he was doomed to death, and came away from his trial 
with the edge of the executioner’s axe turned towards him, — 
as was always done in those times when a state prisoner came to 
that hopeless pass, — he bore it quite serenely, and gave his bless¬ 
ing to his son, who pressed through the crowd in Westminster 
Hall, and kneeled down to receive it. But when he got to the 
Tower wharf, on his way back to his prison, and his favourite 
daughter, Margaret Roper, a very good woman, rushed through 
the guards again and again to kiss him, and to weep upon his 
neck, he was overcome at last. He soon recovered, and never 
more showed any feeling but cheerfulness and courage. When 
he was going up the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said 
jokingly to the lieutenant of the Tower, observing that they 
were weak and shook beneath his tread, “ I pray you, Master 
Lieutenant, see me safe up ; and for my coming down, I can 
shift for myself.” Also he said to the executioner, after he had 
laid his head upon the block, “ Let me put my beard out of the 
way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.” 
Then his head was struck off at a blow. These two executions 
were worthy of King Henry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More 
was one of the most virtuous men in his dominions, and the 
bishop was one of his oldest and truest friends. But to be a 
friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous as to be his wife. 

When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope 
raged against the murderer more than ever pope raged since the 
world began, and prepared a bull, ordering his subjects to take 
arms against him and dethrone him. The king took all possible 



SMITHFIELD 






















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


253 


precautions to keep that document out of his dominions, and set 
to work in return to suppress a great number of the English 
monasteries and abbeys. 

This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of 
whom Cromwell (whom the king had taken into great favour) 
was the head; and was carried on through some few years to 
its entire completion. There is no doubt that many of these 
religious establishments were religious in nothing but in name, 
and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. 
There is no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every 
possible way ; that they had images moved by wires, which 
they pretended were miraculously moved by Heaven ; that they 
had among them a whole tun-measureful of teeth, all purporting 
to have come out of the head of one saint, who must indeed 
have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous 
allowance of grinders ; that they had bits of coal which they 
said had fried St. Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said 
belonged to other famous saints, pen-knives and boots and girdles 
which they said belonged to others ; and that all these bits of 
rubbish were called relics, and adored by the ignorant people. 
But on the other hand, there is no doubt, either, that the king’s 
officers and men punished the good monks with the bad ; did 
great injustice ; demolished many beautiful things and many 
valuable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained-glass 
windows, line pavements, and carvings ; and that the whole 
court were ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of 
this great spoil among them. The king seems to have grown 
almost mad in the ardour of this pursuit; for he declared Thomas 
a Becket a traitor, though he had been dead so many years, and 
had his body dug up out of his grave. He must have been as 
miraculous as the monks pretended, if they had told the truth ; 
for he was found with one head on his shoulders, and they had 
shown another as his undoubted and genuine head ever since his 
death ; it had brought them vast sums of money too. The gold 
and jewels on his shrine filled two great chests, and eight men 
tottered as they carried them away. How rich the monasteries 
were you may infer from the fact that, when they were all 
suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year —= 
in those days an immense sum — came to the crown. 

These things were not done without causing great discontent 
among the people. The monks had been good landlords and 


254 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had been accustomed 
to give away a great deal of corn and fruit and meat and other 
things. In those days it was difficult to change goods into 
money, in consequence of the roads being very few and very 
bad, and the carts and wagons of the worst description; and 
they must either have given away some of the good things they 
possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil 
and moulder. So many of the people missed what it was more 
agreeable to get idly than to work for; and the monks, who 
were driven out of their homes and wandered about, encouraged 
their discontent, and there were, consequently, great risings in 
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These were put down by terrific 
executions, from which the monks themselves did not escape; 
and the king went on grunting and growling in his own fat 
way, like a royal pig. 

I have told this story of the religious houses at one time, to 
make it plainer, and to get back to the king’s domestic affairs. 

The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and 
the king was by this time as tired of his second queen as he 
had been of his first. As he had fallen in love with Anne 
when she was in the service of Catherine, so he now fell in love 
with another lady in the service of Anne. See how wicked 
deeds are punished, and how bitterly and self-reproachfully the 
queen must now have thought of her own rise to the throne! 
The new fancy was a Lady Jane Seymour; and the king no 
sooner set his mind on her, than he resolved to have Anne 
Boleyn’s head. So he brought a number of charges against 
Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never 
committed, and implicating in them her own brother and certain 
gentlemen in her service, among whom one Norris, and Mark 
Smeaton, are best remembered. As the lords and councillors 
were as afraid of the king and as subservient to him as the mean¬ 
est peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn 
guilty, and the other unfortunate persons accused with her 
guilty too. Those gentlemen died like men, with the exception 
of Smeaton, who had been tempted by the king into telling lies, 
which he called confessions, and who had expected to be par¬ 
doned ; but who, I am very glad to say, was not. There was 
then only the queen to dispose of. She had been surrounded 
in the Tower with women spies, had been monstrously perse¬ 
cuted and foully slandered, and had received no justice. But her 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


255 


spirit rose with her afflictions ; and after having in vain tried to 
soften the king by writing an affecting letter to him which still 
exists, u from her doleful prison in the Tower,” she resigned 
herself to death. She said to those about her, very cheerfully, 
that she had heard say the executioner was a good one, and that 
she had a little neck (she laughed and clasped it with her hands 
as she said that), and would soon be out of her pain. And she 
was soon out of pain, poor creature ! on the green inside the 
Tower ; and her body was flung into an old box, and put away 
in the ground under the chapel. 

There is a story that the king sat in his palace listening very 
anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce 
this new murder ; and that, when he heard it come booming on 
the air, he rose up in great spirits, and ordered out his dogs to 
go a hunting. He was bad enough to do it; but whether he 
did it or not, it is certain that he married Jane Seymour the 
very next day. 

I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long 
enough to give birth to a son, who was christened Edward, and 
then to die of fever; for I cannot but think that any woman 
who married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was 
on his hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen 
on the neck of Jane Seymour if she had lived much longer. 

Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church 
property for purposes of religion and education ; but the great 
families had been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little 
could be rescued for such objects. Even Miles Coverdale, who 
did the people the inestimable service of translating the Bible 
into English (which the unreformed religion never permitted to 
be done), was left in poverty while the great families clutched 
the Church lands and money. The people had been told that, 
when the crown came into possession of these funds, it would 
not be necessary to tax them; but they were taxed afresh 
directly afterwards. It was fortunate for them, indeed, that so 
many nobles were so greedy for this wealth; since, if it had 
remained with the crown, there might have been no end to 
tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most active writers 
on the Church’s side against the king was a member of his own 
family, a sort of distant cousin, Beginald Pole by name, who 
attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a 
pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church with 


256 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

liis pen, day and night. As he was beyond the king’s reach, 
being in Italy, the king politely invited him over to discuss the 
subject; but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely stay¬ 
ing where he was, the king’s rage fell upon his brother, Lord 
Montague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen; 
who were tried for high treason in corresponding with him and 
aiding him, which they probably did, and were all executed. 
The Pope made Reginald Pole a cardinal; but so much against 
his will, that it is thought he even aspired in his own mind to 
the vacant throne of England, and had hopes of marrying the 
Princess Mary. His being made a high priest, however, put an 
end to all that. His mother, the venerable Countess of Salis¬ 
bury, who was, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant’s 
reach, was the last of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. 
When she was told to lay her grey head upon the block, she 
answered the executioner, u Ho; my head never committed 
treason, and, if you want it, you shall seize it ! ” So she ran 
round and round the scaffold, with the executioner striking at 
her, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood ; and, even when 
they held her down upon the block, she moved her head about 
to the last, resolved to be no party to her own barbarous mur¬ 
der. All this the people bore, as they had borne everything 
else. 

Indeed, they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield 
were continually burning, and people were constantly being 
roasted to death, — still to show what a good Christian the 
king was. He defied the Pope and his bull, which was now 
issued, and had come into England ; but he burned innumerable 
people whose only offence was that they differed from the Pope’s 
religious opinions. There was a wretched man named Lambert, 
among others, who was tried for this before the king, and with 
whom six bishops argued, one after another. When he was 
quite exhausted (as well he might be, after six bishops), he 
threw himself on the king’s mercy; but the king blustered out 
that he had no mercy for heretics. So he, too, fed the fire. 

All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The 
national spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom 
at this time. The very people who were executed for treason, 
the very wives and friends of the u bluff ” king, spoke of him 
on the scaffold as a good prince, and a gentle prince, just as 
serfs in similar circumstances have been known to do, under the 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


257 


sultan and bashaws of the East, or under the fierce old tyrants 
of Russia, who poured boiling and freezing water on them alter¬ 
nately, until they died. The Parliament were as had as the 
rest, and gave the king whatever he wanted; among other vile 
accommodations, they gave him new powers of murdering, at 
his will and pleasure, any one whom he might choose to call a 
traitor. But the worst measure they passed was an act of six 
articles, commonly called, at the time, “ the whip with six 
strings,” which punished offences against the Pope’s opinions 
without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the monk¬ 
ish religion. Cranmer would have modified it, if he could ; hut 
being overborne by the Romish party, had not the power. As 
one of the articles declared that priests should not marry, and 
as he was married himself, he sent his wife and children into 
Germany, and began to tremble at his danger; none the less 
because he was, and had long been, the king’s friend. This 
whip of six strings was made under the king’s own eye. It 
should never be forgotten of him how cruelly he supported the 
worst of the popish doctrines when there was nothing to be' got 
by opposing them. 

This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. 
He proposed to the French king to have some of the ladies of 
the French court exhibited before him, that he might make his 
royal choice ; but the French king answered that he would 
rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses at 
a fair. He proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who 
replied that she might have thought of such a match if she had 
had two heads; but that, only owning one, she must beg to 
keep it safe. At last Cromwell represented that there was a 
Protestant princess in Germany, — those who held the reformed 
religion were called Protestants, because their leaders had pro¬ 
tested against the abuses and impositions of the unreformed 
church, — named Anne of Cleves, who was beautiful, and 
would answer the purpose admirably. The king said, Was she 
a large woman ? because he must have a fat wife. <c Oh, yes ! ” 
said Cromwell; u she was very large, just the thing.” On 
hearing this, the king sent over his famous painter, Hans Hol¬ 
bein, to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be so good- 
looking that the king was satisfied, and the marriage was 
arranged. But whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up 
the picture, or whether Hans, like one or two other painters, 


258 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

flattered a princess in the ordinary way of business, I cannot 
say; all I know is, that when ’ Anne came over, and the king 
went to Rochester to meet her, and first saw her without her 
seeing him, he swore she was “a great Flanders mare,” and 
said he would never marry her. Being obliged to do it, now 
matters had gone so far, he would not give her the presents he 
had prepared, and would never notice her. He never forgave 
Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates from that 
time. 

It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the un¬ 
reformed religion, putting in the king’s way, at a state dinner, 
a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard, a young 
lady of fascinating manners, though small in stature and not 
particularly beautiful. Falling in love with her on the spot, 
the king soon divorced Anne of Cleves, after making her the 
subject of much brutal talk, on pretence that she had been pre¬ 
viously betrothed to some one else, — which would never do for 
one of his dignity, — and married Catherine. It is probable 
that on his wedding-day, of all days in the year, he sent his 
faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had his head struck off. 
He further celebrated the occasion by burning at one time, and 
causing to be drawn to the fire on the same hurdles, some 
Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope’s doctrines, and some 
Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his own supremacy. Still 
the people bore it, and not a gentleman in England raised his 
hand. 

But by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine 
Howard, before her marriage, had been really guilty of such 
crimes as the king had falsely attributed to his second wife, 
Anne Boleyn; so again the dreadful axe made the king a 
widower, and this queen passed away as so many in that reign 
had passed away before her. As an appropriate pursuit under 
the circumstances, Henry then applied himself to superintending 
the composition of a religious book, called u A Necessary Doc¬ 
trine for any Christian Man.” He must have been a little 
confused in his mind, I think, at about this period; for he was 
so false to himself as to be true to some one, — that some one 
being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and others of his 
enemies tried to ruin, but to whom the king was steadfast, and 
to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him when he 
should find himself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


259 


the council board. This Cranmer did, to the confusion of his 
enemies. I suppose the king thought he might want him a 
little longer. 

He married yet once more. Yes; strange to say, he found 
in England another woman who would become his wife, and she 
was Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned to¬ 
wards the reformed religion; and it is some comfort to know, 
that she tormented the king considerably by arguing a variety 
of doctrinal points with him on all possible occasions. She 
had very nearly done this to her own destruction. After one 
of these conversations, the king, in a very black mood, actually 
instructed Gardiner, one of the bishops who favoured the 
popish opinions, to draw a bill of accusation against her, which 
would have inevitably brought her to the scaffold where her 
predecessors had died, but that one of her friends picked up the 
paper of instructions which had been dropped in the palace, and 
gave her timely notice. She fell ill with terror; but managed 
the king so well when he came to entrap her into further state¬ 
ments, — by saying that she had only spoken on such points to 
divert his mind, and to get some information from his extraor¬ 
dinary wisdom, — that he gave her a kiss, and called her his 
sweetheart. And when the chancellor came next day, actually 
to take her to the Tower, the king sent him about his business, 
and honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a 
fool. So near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow 
was her escape! 

There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short, 
clumsy war with Prance for favouring Scotland ; but the events 
at home were so dreadful, and leave such an enduring stain on 
the country, that I need say no more of what happened abroad. 

A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a 
lady, Anne Askew, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protes¬ 
tant opinions, and whose husband, being a fierce Catholic, turned 
her out of the house. She came to London, and was considered 
as offending against the six articles, and was taken to the Tower, 
and put upon the rack, — probably because it was hoped she 
might, in her agony, criminate some obnoxious persons; if 
falsely, so much the better. She was tortured without uttering 
a cry, until the lieutenant of the Tower would suffer his men 
to torture her no more; and then two priests, who were pres¬ 
ent, actually pulled off their robes, and turned the wheels of 


260 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the rack with their own hands, so rending and twisting and 
breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the fire in a 
chair. She was burned with three others, — a gentleman, a 
clergyman, and a tailor; and so the world w^ent on. 

Either the king became afraid of the power of the Duke of 
Norfolk, and his son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some 
offence ; but he resolved to pull them down, to follow all the 
rest who were gone. The son was tried first, — of course for 
nothing, — and defended himself bravely ; but of course he was 
found guilty, and of course he was executed. Then his father 
was laid hold of, and left for death too. 

But the king himself was left for death by a greater King, 
and the earth was to be rid of him at last. He was now a 
swollen, hideous spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and so 
odious to every sense that it was dreadful to approach him. 
When he was found to be dying, Cranmer was sent for from his 
palace at Croydon, and came with all speed, but found him 
speechless. Happily, in that hour he perished. He was in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age, and thirty-eighth of his reign. 

Henry the Eighth has been favoured by some Protestant 
writers, because the Reformation was achieved in his time. But 
the mighty merit of it lies with other men, and not with him; 
and it can be rendered none the worse by this monster’s crimes, 
and none the better by any defence of them. The plain truth 
is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human 
nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the history of 
England. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


261 


CHAPTER XXIX 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH 

Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council 
of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while he was under 
age (he was now only ten years old), and another council of 
twelve to help them. The most powerful of the first council 
was the Earl of Hertford, the young king’s uncle, who lost no 
time in bringing his nephew with great state up to Enfield, and 
thence to the Tower. It was considered at the time a striking 
proof of virtue in the young king that he was sorry for his 
father’s death ; but as common subjects have that virtue too, 
sometimes, we will say no more about it. 

There was a curious part of the late king’s will, requiring his 
executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some of the 
court wondering what these might be, the Earl of Hertford and the 
other noblemen interested said that they were promises to advance 
and enrich them. So the Earl of Hertford made himself Duke 
of Somerset, and made his brother Edward Seymour a baron ; and 
there were various similar promotions all very agreeable to the 
parties concerned, and very dutiful, no doubt, to the late king’s 
memory. To be more dutiful still, they made themselves rich 
out of the Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new 
Duke of Somerset caused himself to be declared Protector of 
the kingdom, and was, indeed, the king. 

As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the 
principles of the Protestant religion, everybody knew that they 
would be maintained. But Cranmer, to whom they were chiefly 
intrusted, advanced them steadily and temperately. Many super¬ 
stitious and ridiculous practices were stopped; but practices 
which were harmless were not interfered with. 

The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to have 
the young king engaged in marriage to the young queen of 
Scotland, in order to prevent that princess from making an 
alliance with any foreign power; but as a large party in Scot- 


t 


262 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


land were unfavourable to this plan, he invaded that country. 
His excuse for doing so was, that the Border men — that is, the 
Scotch who lived in that part of the country where England 
and Scotland joined — troubled the English very much. But 
there were two sides to this question; for the English Border 
men troubled the Scotch too; and, through many long years, 
there were perpetual Border quarrels, which gave rise to num¬ 
bers of old tales and songs. However, the Protector invaded 
Scotland; and Arran, Scottish regent, with an army twice as large 
as his, advanced to meet him. They encountered on the banks 
of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh; and there, 
after a little skirmish, the Protector made such moderate pro¬ 
posals, in offering to retire if the Scotch would only engage not 
to marry their princess to any foreign prince, that the regent 
thought the English were afraid. But in this he made a horri¬ 
ble mistake; for the English soldiers on land, and the English 
sailors on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they broke 
and fled, and more than ten thousand of them were killed. It 
was a dreadful battle, for the fugitives were slain without 
mercy. The ground for four miles, all the way to Edinburgh, 
was strewn with dead men, and with arms and legs and heads. 
Some hid themselves in streams, and were drowned; some 
threw away their armour, and were killed running, almost 
naked; but in this battle of Pinkey the English lost only two 
or three hundred men. They were much better clothed than 
the Scotch, at the poverty of whose appearance and country 
they were exceedingly astonished. 

A Parliament was called when Somerset came back; and it 
repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other 
good things; though it unhappily retained the punishment of 
burning for those people who did not make believe to believe, 
in all religious matters, what the government had declared that 
they must and should believe. It also made a foolish law 
(meant to put down beggars), that any man who lived idly, and 
loitered about for three days together, should be burned with 
a hot iron, made a slave, and wear an iron fetter. But this 
savage absurdity soon came to an end, and went the w T ay of a 
great many other foolish laws. 

The Protector was now so proud, that he sat in Parliament 
before all the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many 
other noblemen, who only wanted to be as proud if they could 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


263 


get a chance, became his enemies of course; and it is supposed 
that he came back suddenly from Scotland because he had 
received news that his brother, Lord Seymour, was becoming 
dangerous to him. This lord was now High Admiral of Eng¬ 
land ; a very handsome man, and a great favourite with the 
court ladies, — even with the young Princess Elizabeth, who 
romped with him a little more than young princesses in these 
times do with any one. He had married Catherine Parr, the 
late king’s widow, who was now dead; and to strengthen his 
power, he secretly supplied the young king with money. He 
may even have engaged with some of his brother’s enemies in a 
plot to carry the boy off. On these, and other accusations, at 
any rate, he was confined in the Tower, impeached, and found 
guilty; his own brother’s name being — unnatural and sad to 
tell — the first signed to the warrant for his execution. He 
was executed on Tower Hill, and died denying his treason. 
One of his last proceedings in this world was to write two letters, 
one to the Princess Elizabeth, and one to the Princess Mary, 
which a servant of his took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. 
These letters are supposed to have urged them against his 
brother, and to revenge his death. What they truly contained 
is not known; but there is doubt that he had, at one time, 
obtained great influence over the Princess Elizabeth. 

All this while the Protestant religion was making progress. 
The images which the people had gradually come to worship 
were removed from the churches; the people were informed 
that they need not confess themselves to priests unless they 
chose; a common prayer-book was drawn up in the English 
language, which all could understand ; and many other improve¬ 
ments were made, — still moderately ; for Cranmer was a very 
moderate man, and even restrained the Protestant clergy from 
violently abusing the unreformed religion, as they very often 
did, and which was not a good example. But the people were 
at this time in great distress. The rapacious nobility who had 
come into possession of the Church lands were very bad land¬ 
lords. They inclosed great quantities of ground for the feeding 
of sheep, which was then more profitable than the growing of 
crops ; and this increased the general distress. So the people, 
who still understood little of what was going on about them, 
and still readily believed what the homeless monks told them, 
_many of whom had been their good friends in their better 


2G4 a child’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

days, — took it into their heads that all this was owing to 
the reformed religion, and therefore rose in many parts of the 
country. 

The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk. 
In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand 
men united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. 
But Lord Bussell, coming to the assistance of the citizens who 
defended that town, defeated the rebels ; and not only hanged 
the mayor of one place, but hanged the vicar of another from 
his own church steeple. What with hanging and killing by the 
sword, four thousand of the rebels are supposed to have fallen 
in that one county. In Norfolk (where the rising was more 
against the inclosure of open lands than against the reformed 
religion), the popular leader was a man named Bobert Ket, a 
tanner of Wymondham. The mob were, in the first instance, 
excited against the tanner by one John Elowerdew, a gentleman 
who owed him a grudge ; but the tanner was more than a match 
for the gentleman, since he soon got the people on his side, and 
established himself near Norwich, with quite an army. There 
was a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot called Moushold 
Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Beformation; and under 
its green boughs, he and his men sat in the mid-summer weather, 
holding courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They 
were even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome public 
speakers to get up into this Tree of Beformation, and point out 
their errors to them in long discourses, while they lay listening 
(not always without some grumbling and growling) in the shade 
below. At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared below 
the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless 
from that moment they dispersed and went home ; in which 
case they were to receive a pardon. But Ket and his men made 
light of the herald, and became stronger than ever, until the 
Earl of Warwick went after them with a sufficient force, and 
cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered 
as traitors ; and their limbs were sent into various country places 
to be a terror to the people. Nine of them were hanged upon 
nine green branches of the Oak of Beformation ; and so for the 
time that tree may be said to have withered away. 

The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for 
the real distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire 
to help them. But he was too proud and too high in degree to 



KET’S HILL, NORWICH 















































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


265 


hold even their favour steadily ; and many of the nobles always 
envied and hated him, because they were as proud and not as 
high as he. He was at this time building a great palace in the 
Strand ; to get the stone for which he blew up church steeples 
with gunpowder, and pulled down bishops’ houses, thus making 
himself still more disliked. At length, his principal enemy, the 
Earl of Warwick, — Dudley by name, and the son of that Dud¬ 
ley who had made himself so odious with Empson, in the reign 
of Henry the Seventh,—joined with seven other members of 
the council against him, formed a separate council, and, become 
stronger in a few days, sent him to the Tower under twenty- 
nine articles of accusation. After being sentenced by the council 
to the forfeiture of all his offices and lands, he was liberated and 
pardoned on making a very humble submission. He was even 
taken back into the council again, after having suffered this fall, 
and married his daughter, Lady Anne Seymour, to Warwick’s 
eldest son. But such a reconciliation was little likely to last, 
and did not outlive a year. Warwick, having got himself made 
Duke of Northumberland, and having advanced the more im¬ 
portant of his friends, then finished the history by causing the 
Duke of Somerset and his friend Lord Grey, and others, to be 
arrested for treason, in having conspired to seize and dethrone 
the king. They were also accused of having intended to seize 
the new Duke of Northumberland, with his friends, Lord 
Northampton and Lord Pembroke, to murder them if they 
found need, and to raise the city to revolt. All this the fallen 
Protector positively denied ; except that he confessed to having 
spoken of the murder of those three noblemen, but having never 
designed it. He was acquitted of the charge of treason, and 
found guilty of the other charges; so when the people — who 
remembered his having been their friend, now that he was 
disgraced and in danger — saw him come out from his trial 
with the axe turned from him, they thought he was altogether 
acquitted, and set up a loud shout of joy. 

But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on 
Tower Hill, at eight o’clock in the morning, and proclamations 
were issued bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. 
They filled the streets, however, and crowded the place of exe¬ 
cution as soon as it was light; and, with sad faces and sad 
hearts, saw the once powerful protector ascend the scaffold to 
lay his head upon the dreadful block. While he was yet say- 


266 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


ing his last words to them with manly courage, and telling them 
in particular how it comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted 
in reforming the national religion, a member of the council was 
seen riding up on horseback. They again thought that the 
duke was saved by his bringing a reprieve, and again shouted 
for joy. But the duke himself told them they were mistaken, 
and laid down his head and had it struck off at a blow. 

Many of the bystanders rushed forward, and steeped their 
handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He 
had, indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them 
was discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Durham, 
a very good man, had been informed against to the council, 
when the duke was in power, as having answered a treacherous 
letter proposing a rebellion against the reformed religion. As 
the answer could not he found, he could not be declared guilty; 
but it was now discovered, hidden by the duke himself among 
some private papers, in his regard for that good man. The 
bishop lost his office, and was deprived of his possessions. 

It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in 
prison under sentence of death, the young king was being vastly 
entertained by plays and dances and sham fights; but there is 
no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is pleasanter 
to know that not a single Boman Catholic was burnt in this 
reign for holding that religion; though two wretched victims 
suffered for heresy. One, a woman named Joan Bocher, for 
professing some opinions that even she could only explain in 
unintelligible jargon. The other, a Dutchman, named Von 
Paris, who practised as a surgeon in London. Edward was, to 
his credit, exceedingly unwilling to sign the warrant for the 
woman’s execution : shedding tears before he did so, and telling 
Cranmer who urged him to do it (though Cranmer really would 
have spared the woman at first, but for her own determined 
obstinacy), that the guilt was not his, but that of the man who 
so strongly urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too soon, 
whether the time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have 
remembered this with sorrow and remorse. 

Cranmer and Bidley (at first Bishop of Bochester, and after¬ 
wards Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the clergy 
of this reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived of their 
property for still adhering to the unreformed religion ; the most 
important among whom were Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


267 


Heath, Bishop of Worcester, Hay, Bishop of Chichester, and 
Bonner, that Bishop of London who was superseded by Bidley. 
The Princess Mary, who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, 
and hated the reformed religion as connected with her mother’s 
wrongs and sorrows, — she knew nothing else about it, always 
refusing to read a single hook in which it was truly described, 
— held by the unreformed religion too, and was the only person 
in the kingdom for whom the old mass was allowed to he per¬ 
formed; nor would the young king have made that exception 
even in her favour, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer 
and Bidley. He always viewed it with horror; and when he 
fell into a sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of 
the measles and then of the smallpox, he was greatly troubled 
in mind to think that if he died, and she, the next heir to the 
throne, succeeded, the Boman Catholic religion would be set up 
again. 

This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow 
to encourage; for if the Princess Mary came to the throne, he, 
who had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be dis¬ 
graced. Now, the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from King 
Henry the Seventh ; and if she resigned what little or no right 
she had, in favour of her daughter, Lady Jane Grey, that would 
be the succession to promote the duke’s greatness; because Lord 
Guilford Dudley, one of his sons, was, at this very time, newly 
married to her. So he worked upon the king’s fears, and per¬ 
suaded him to set aside both the Princess Mary and the Princess 
Elizabeth, and assert his right to appoint his successor. Accord¬ 
ingly the young king handed to the crown lawyers a writing 
signed half a dozen times over by himself, appointing Lady Jane 
Grey to succeed to the crown, and requiring them to have his 
will made out according to law. They were much against it at 
first, and told the king so ; but the Duke of Northumberland 
being so violent about it that the lawyers even expected him to 
beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to his shirt, he 
would fight any man in such a quarrel, they yielded. Cranmer 
also at first hesitated, pleading that he had sworn to maintain 
the succession of the crown to the Princess Mary; but he was 
a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards signed the docu¬ 
ment with the rest of the council. 

It was completed none too soon; for Edward was now sink¬ 
ing in a rapid decline; and, by way of making him better, they 


268 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


handed him over to a woman doctor who pretended to he able 
to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the sixth of July, in the 
year 1553, he died, very peaceably and piously, praying God, 
with his last breath, to protect the reformed religion. 

This king died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the 
seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the character 
of one so young might afterwards have become among so many 
bad, ambitious, quarrelling nobles. But he was an amiable 
boy, of very good abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or 
brutal in his disposition, which in the son of such a father is 
rather surprising. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


269 


CHAPTER XXX 

ENGLAND UNDER MARY 

The Duke of Xorthumberland was very anxious to keep the 
young king's death a secret, in order that he might get the two 
princesses in his power. But the Princess Mary, being informed 
of that event as she was on her way to London to see her sick 
brother, turned her horse’s head, and rode away into Norfolk. 
The Earl of Arundel was her friend; and it was he who sent 
her warning of what had happened. 

As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northumber¬ 
land and the council sent for the Lord Mayor of London and 
some of the aldermen, and made a merit of telling it to them. 
Then they made it known to the people, and set off to inform 
Lady Jane Grey that she was to be queen. 

She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, 
learned, and clever. When the lords who came to her fell on 
their knees before her, and told her what tidings they brought, 
she was so astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she 
expressed her sorrow for the young king’s death, and said that 
she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom; but that, if she 
must be queen, she prayed God to direct her. She was then at 
Sion House, near Brentford j and the lords took her down the 
river in state to the Tower, that she might remain there (as the 
custom was) until she was crowned. But the people were not 
at all favourable to Lady Jane, considering that the right to be 
queen was Mary’s, and greatly disliking the Duke of Northum¬ 
berland. They were not put into a better humour by the 
duke’s causing a vintner’s servant, one Gabriel Pot, to be taken 
up for expressing his dissatisfaction among the crowd, and to 
have his ears nailed to the pillory, and cut off. Some powerful 
men among the nobility declared on Mary’s side. They raised 
troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed queen at Nor¬ 
wich, and gathered around her at the castle of Eramingham, 
which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For she was not consid- 


270 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

ered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in a castle on 
the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad if necessary. 

The council would have despatched Lady Jane’s father, the 
Duke of Suffolk, as the general of the army against this force ; 
but as Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with 
her, and as he was known to be but a weak man, they told the 
Duke of Northumberland that he must take the command him¬ 
self. He was not very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the 
council much; but there was no help for it, and he set forth 
with a heavy heart, observing to a lord who rode beside him 
through Shoreditch, at the head of the troops, that, although the 
people pressed in great numbers to look at them, they were 
terribly silent. 

And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. 
While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the 
council, the council took it into their heads to turn their backs 
on Lady Jane’s cause, and to take up the Princess Mary’s. 
This was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned Earl of Arun¬ 
del, who represented to the lord mayor and aldermen, in a 
second interview with those sagacious persons, that as for him¬ 
self, he did not perceive the reformed religion to be in much 
danger, — which Lord Pembroke backed by flourishing his 
sword as another kind of persuasion. The lord mayor and 
aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be no doubt that 
the Princess Mary ought to be queen. So she was proclaimed 
at the Cross by St. Paul’s ; and barrels of wine were given to 
the people, and they got very drunk, and danced round blaz¬ 
ing bonfires, little thinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires 
would soon be blazing in Queen Mary’s name. 

After a ten days’ dream of royalty, Lady Jane Grey resigned 
the crown with great willingness, saying that she had only 
accepted it in obedience to her father and mother; and went 
gladly back to her pleasant house by the river, and her books. 
Mary then came on towards London ; and at Wanstead, in 
Essex, was joined by her half sister, the Princess Elizabeth. 
They passed through the streets of London to the Tower; and 
there the new queen met some eminent prisoners then confined 
in it, kissed them, and gave them their liberty. Among these 
was that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who had been im¬ 
prisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed religion. 
Him she soon made chancellor. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


271 


The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, and, 
together with his son and five others, was quickly brought 
before the council. He, not unnaturally, asked that council, in 
his defence, whether it was treason to obey orders that had been 
issued under the great seal; and, if it were, whether they, who 
had obeyed them too, ought to be his judges ? But they made 
light of these points; and, being resolved to have him out of 
the way, soon sentenced him to death. He had risen into 
power upon the death of another man, and made but a poor 
show (as might be expected) when he himself lay low. He 
entreated Gardiner to let him live, if it were only in a mouse’s 
hole; and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on 
Tower Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying 
that he had been incited by others, and exhorting them to 
return to the unreformed religion, which he told them was his 
faith. There seems reason to suppose that he expected a par¬ 
don even then, in return for this confession; but it matters 
little whether he did or not. His head was struck off. 

Mary was now crowned queen. She was thirty-seven years 
of age, short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. 
But she had a great liking for show and for bright colours, and 
all the ladies of her court were magnificently dressed. She 
had a great liking, too, for old customs, without much sense in 
them ; and she was oiled in the oldest way, and blessed in the 
oldest way, and done all manner of things to in the oldest way, 
at her coronation. I hope they did her good. 

She soon began to show her desire to put down the reformed 
religion, and put up the unreformed one; though it was 
dangerous work as yet, the people being something wiser than 
they used to be. They even cast a shower of stones — and 
among them a dagger — at one of the royal chaplains who 
attacked the reformed religion in a public sermon. But the 
queen and her priests went steadily on. Kidley, the powerful 
bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent to the Tower. 
Latimer, also celebrated among the clergy of the last reign, was 
likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmer speedily followed. 
Latimer was an aged man, and, as his guards took him through 
Smithfield, he looked round it, and said, “ This is a place that 
hath long groaned for me.” For he knew well what kind of 
bonfires would soon be burning. Nor was the knowledge con¬ 
fined to him. The prisons were fast filled with the chief 


272 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Protestants, who were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, 
dirt, and separation from their friends; many, who had time 
left them for escape, fled from the kingdom, and the dullest of 
the people began now to see what was coming. 

It came on fast. A Parliament was got together ; not with¬ 
out strong suspicion of unfairness; and they annulled the 
divorce, formerly pronounced by Cranmer between the queen’s 
mother and King Henry the Eighth, and unmade all the laws on 
the subject of religion that had been made in the last King 
Edward’s reign. They began their proceedings, in violation of 
the law, by having the old mass said before them in Latin, and 
by turning out a bishop who would not kneel down. They also 
declared guilty of treason Lady Jane Grey, for aspiring to the 
crown; her husband, for being her husband; and Cranmer, for 
not believing in the mass aforesaid. They then prayed the 
queen graciously to choose a husband for herself, as soon as 
might be. 

Now, the question who should be the queen’s husband had 
given rise to a great deal of discussion, and to several contend¬ 
ing parties. Some said Cardinal Pole was the man; but the 
queen was of the opinion that he was not the man, he being 
too old and too much of a student. Others said that the 
gallant young Courtenay, whom the queen had made Earl of 
Devonshire, was the man, — and the queen thought so too, for 
a while, but she changed her mind. At last it appeared that 
Philip, Prince of Spain, was certainly the man, — though cer¬ 
tainly not the people’s man; for they detested the idea of such 
a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured that 
the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of foreign 
soldiers, the worst abuses of the popish religion, and even the 
terrible Inquisition itself. 

These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying 
young Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them 
up, with popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the 
queen. This was discovered in time by Gardiner; but in 
Kent, the old bold county, the people rose in their old bold 
way. Sir Thomas Wyat, a man of great daring, was their 
leader. He raised his standard at Maidstone, marched on to 
Rochester, established himself in the old castle there, and 
prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk, who came 
against him with a party of the queen’s guards and a body of 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


273 


five hundred London men. The London men, however, were 
all for Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, 
under the castle walls, for Wyat; the duke retreated ; and Wyat 
came on to Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men. 

But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to South¬ 
wark, there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by 
finding the London citizens in arms, and the guns at the Tower 
ready to oppose his crossing the river there, Wyat led them off 
to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to cross the bridge that he 
knew to be in that place, and so to work his way round to 
Ludgate, one of the old gates of the city. He found the bridge 
broken down, but mended it, came across, and bravely fought 
his way up Fleet Street to Ludgate Hill. Finding the gate 
closed against him, he fought his way back again, sword in 
hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being overpowered, he surren¬ 
dered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were taken, 
besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weakness 
(and perhaps of torture), was afterwards made to accuse the 
Princess Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. 
But his manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save 
his life by making any more false confessions. He was quar¬ 
tered and distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to 
a hundred of his followers were hanged. The rest were led 
out, with halters round their necks, to be pardoned, and to 
make a parade of crying out, “ God save Queen Mary ! ” 

In the danger of this rebellion, the queen showed herself to 
be a woman of courage and spirit. She disdained to retreat to 
any place of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre in 
hand, and made a gallant speech to the lord mayor and citizens. 
But on the day after Wyat’s defeat she did the most cruel act, 
even of her cruel reign, in signing the death warrant for the 
execution of Lady Jane Grey. 

They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed 
religion ; but she steadily refused. On the morning when she 
was to die, she saw from her wirfdow the bleeding and headless 
body of her husband brought back in a cart from the scaffold on 
Tower Hill, where he had laid down his life. But as she had 
declined to see him before his execution, lest she should be 
overpowered and not make a good end, so she even now showed 
a constancy and calmness that will never be forgotten. She 
came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet face, and 


274 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. They were not 
numerous ; for she was too young, too innocent and fair, to be 
murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as her husband had 
just been : so the place of her execution was within the Tower 
itself. She said that she had done an unlawful act in taking 
what was Queen Mary’s right; hut that she had done so 
with no had intent, and that she died a humble Christian. 
She begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, and she 
asked him, “ Will you take my head off before I lay me 
down ? ” He answered, u Ho, madam,” and then she was very 
quiet while they bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable 
to see the block on which she was to lay her young head, she 
was seen to feel about for it with her hands, and was heard to 
say, confused, u Oh, what shall I do ? Where is it ? ” Then 
they guided her to the right place, and the executioner struck 
off her head. You know too well, now, what dreadful deeds 
the executioner did in England, through many, many years, and 
how his axe descended on the hateful block through the necks 
of some of the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it 
never struck so cruel and so vile a blow as this. 

The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied. 
Queen Mary’s next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and this 
was pursued with great eagerness. Five hundred men were 
sent to her retired house at Ashridge, by Berkliampstead, with 
orders to bring her up, alive or dead. They got there at ten at 
night, when she was sick in bed. But their leaders followed 
her lady into her bedchamber, whence she was brought out 
betimes next morning, and put into a litter to be conveyed to 
London. She was so weak and ill that she was five days on 
the road; still, she was so resolved to be seen by the people 
that she had the curtains of the litter opened; and so, very pale 
and sickly, passed through the streets. She wrote to her sis¬ 
ter, saying she was innocent of any crime, and asking why she 
was made a prisoner; but she got no answer, and was ordered 
to the Tower. They took her in by the Traitor’s Gate, to 
which she objected, but in vain. One of the lords who con¬ 
veyed her offered to cover her with his cloak, as it was raining ; 
but she put it away from her, proudly and scornfully, and passed 
into the Tower, and sat down in a courtyard on a stone. They 
besought her to come in out of the wet; buf she answered that 
it was better sitting there than in a worse place. At length she 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 275 

went to her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, though 
not so close a prisoner as. at Woodstock, whither she was after¬ 
wards removed, and where she is said to have one day envied a 
milkmaid whom she heard singing in the sunshine as she went 
through the green fields. Gardiner, than whom there were not 
many worse men among the fierce and sullen priests, cared little 
to keep secret his stern desire for her death; being used to say 
that it was of little service to shake off the leaves, and lop the 
branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hope of heretics, 
were left. He failed, however, in his benevolent design. 
Elizabeth was at length released; and Hatfield House was 
assigned to her as a residence, under the care of one Sir Thomas 
Pope. 

It would seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a main 
cause of this change in Elizabeth’s fortunes. He Avas not an 
amiable man, being, on the contrary, proud, overbearing, and 
gloomy; hut he and the Spanish lords who came over with him 
assuredly did discountenance the idea of doing any violence to 
the princess. It may have been mere prudence, hut we will 
hope it was manhood and honour. The queen had been expect¬ 
ing her husband with great impatience; and at length he came, 
to her great joy, though he never cared much for her. They 
were married by Gardiner, at Winchester, and there was more 
holiday-making among the people ; but they had their old dis¬ 
trust of this Spanish marriage, in which even the Parliament 
shared. Though the members of that Parliament were far from 
honest, and were strongly suspected to have been bought with 
Spanish money, they would pass no hill to enable the queen to 
set aside the Princess Elizabeth, and appoint her own successor. 

Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the 
darker one of bringing the princess to the scaffold, he went on 
at a great pace in the revival of the unreformed religion. A 
new Parliament was packed, in which there were no Protestants. 
Preparations were made to receive Cardinal Pole in England as 
the Pope’s messenger, bringing his holy declaration that all the 
nobility who had acquired Church property should keep it; 
which was done to enlist their selfish interest on the Pope’s 
side. Then a great scene was enacted, which was the triumph 
of the queen’s plans. Cardinal Pole arrived with great splen¬ 
dour and dignity, and was received with great pomp. The 
Parliament joined in a petition expressive of their sorrow at the 


276 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


change in the national religion, and praying him to receive the 
country again into the Popish Church. With the queen sitting 
on her throne, and the king on one side of her, and the cardinal 
on the other, and the Parliament present, Gardiner read the 
petition aloud. The cardinal then made a great speech, and 
was so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven, 
and that the kingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic 
again. 

Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible 
bonfires. The queen having declared to the council, in writing, 
that she would wish none of her subjects to be burnt without some 
of the council being present, and that she would particularly 
wish there to be good sermons at all burnings, the council knew 
pretty well what was to be done next. So after the cardinal 
had blessed all the bishops as a preface to the burnings, the 
Chancellor Gardiner opened a high court at St. Mary Overy, on 
the Southwark side of London Bridge, for the trial of heretics. 
Here two of the late Protestant clergymen, Hooper, Bishop of 
Gloucester, and Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul’s, were brought 
to be tried. Hooper was tried first for being married, though 
a priest, and for not believing in the mass. He admitted both 
of these accusations, and said that the mass was a wicked impo¬ 
sition. Then they tried Rogers, who said the same. Next 
morning the two were brought up to be sentenced ; and then 
Rogers said that his poor wife, being a German woman and a 
stranger in the land, he hoped might be allowed to come to 
speak to him before he died. To this the inhuman Gardiner 
replied, that she was not his wife. “ Yea, but she is, my lord,” 
said Rogers ; “ she hath been my wife these eighteen years.” 
His request was still refused, and they were both sent to New¬ 
gate ; all those who stood in the streets to sell things being 
ordered to put out their lights that the people might not see 
them. But the people stood at their doors with candles in 
their hands, and prayed for them as they went by. Soon after¬ 
wards Rogers was taken out of jail to be burnt in Smithfield; 
and in the crowd as he went along, he saw his poor wife and 
his ten children, of whom the youngest was a little baby. And 
so he was burnt to death. 

The next day Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, 
was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear 
a hood over his face that he might not be known by the people. 


4 





OLD HATFIELD HOUSE 














A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


277 


But they did know him for all that, down in his own part of 
the country; and when he came near Gloucester, they lined the 
road, making prayers and lamentations. His guards took him to 
a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. At nine o’clock 
next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff; for he 
had taken cold in prison and was infirm. The iron stake, and 
the iron chain which was to bind him to it, were fixed up near 
a great elm-tree, in a pleasant open place before the cathedral, 
where, on peaceful Sundays, he had been accustomed to preach 
and to pray when he was Bishop of Gloucester. This tree, which 
had no leaves then, it being February, was filled with people ; 
and the priests of Gloucester College were looking complacently 
on from a window ; and there was a great concourse of specta¬ 
tors in every spot from which a glimpse of the dreadful sight 
could be beheld. When the old man kneeled down on the 
small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud, the 
nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers 
that they were ordered to stand farther back ; for it did not 
suit the Bomish Church to have those Protestant words heard. 
His prayers concluded, he went up to the stake, and was 
stripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One 
of his guards had such compassion on him that, to shorten his 
agonies, he tied some packets of gunpowder about him. Then 
they heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set them all 
alight. But unhappily the wood was green and damp, and 
there was a wind blowing that blew what flame there was away. 
Thus through three quarters of an hour, the good old man was 
scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank; and 
all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips in 
prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the 
other was burnt away and had fallen off. 

Cranmer, Bidley, and Latimer were taken to Oxford to dis¬ 
pute with a commission of priests and doctors about the mass. 
They were shamefully treated ; and it is recorded that the Ox¬ 
ford scholars hissed and howled and groaned, and misconducted 
themselves in anything but a scholarly way. The prisoners 
were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary’s 
Church. They were all found guilty. On the sixteenth of the 
month of October, Bidley and Latimer were brought out to 
make another of the dreadful bonfires. 

The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant men 


278 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


was in the city ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the 
dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each 
other. And then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which 
was placed there, and preached a sermon from the text, “ Though 
I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth 
me nothing. 5 ’ When you think of the charity of burning men 
alive, you may imagine that this learned doctor had a rather 
brazen face. Ridley would have answered his sermon when it 
came to an end, but was not allowed. When Latimer was 
stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself, under his 
other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in it before 
all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, that, 
whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes 
before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge 
that he was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley’s 
brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder; and, when 
they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. 
Then a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. “ Be of good 
comfort, Master Ridley,” said Latimer at that awful moment, 
u and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, 
by God’s grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out.” 
And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he 
were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face 
with them, and was heard to cry, “ Father of Heaven ! receive 
my soul.” He died quickly ; but the fire, after having burned 
the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the 
iron post, and crying, “ Oh, I cannot burn! Oh, for Christ’s 
sake, let the fire come unto me! ” And still, when his brother- 
in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through the 
blinding smoke, still dismally crying, “ Oh, I cannot burn, I 
cannot burn ! ” At last the gunpowder caught fire, and ended 
his miseries. 

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his 
tremendous account before God, for the cruelties he had so 
much assisted in committing. 

Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought 
out again in February, for more examining and trying, by 
Bonner, Bishop of London, — another man of blood, who 
had succeeded to Gardiner’s work, even in his lifetime, when 
Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer was now degraded as a 
priest, and left for death; but if the queen hated any one on 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


279 


earth, she hated him; and it was resolved that he should be 
ruined and disgraced to the utmost. There is no doubt that 
the queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds, 
because they wrote to the council, urging them to be active in 
the kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer was known not 
to be a firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with 
artful people, and inducing him to recant to the unreformed 
religion. Deans and friars visited him, played at bowls with 
him, showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with 
him, gave him money for his prison comforts, and induced him 
to sign, I fear, as many as six recantations. But when, after 
all, he was taken out to be burnt, he was nobly true to his 
better self, and made a glorious end. 

After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day 
(who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in 
prison), required him to make a public confession of his faith 
before the people. This Cole did, expecting that he would 
declare himself a Roman Catholic. “ I will make a profession 
of my faith,” said Cranmer, “and with a good will too.” 

Then he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of 
his robe a written prayer, and read it aloud. That done, he 
knelt and said the Lord’s Prayer, all the people joining ; and 
then he arose again, and told them that he believed in the Bible ; 
and that in what he had lately written, he had written what was 
not the truth ; and that, because his right hand had signed those 
papers, he would burn his right hand first when he came to the 
fire. As for the Pope, he did refuse him and denounce him, 
as the enemy of Heaven. Hereupon the pious Dr. Cole cried 
out to the guards to stop that heretic’s mouth, and take him 
away. 

So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, where 
he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. 
And he stood before the people with a bald head and a white 
and flowing beard. He was so firm now, when the worst was 
come, that he again declared against his recantation, and was so 
impressive and so undismayed that a certain lord, who was one 
of the directors of the execution, called out to his men to make 
haste. When the fire was lighted, Cranmer, true to his latest 
word, stretched out his right hand, and crying out, “ This hand 
hath offended ! ” held it among the flames, until it blazed and 
burned away. His heart was found entire among his ashes, and 


278 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


was in the city ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the 
dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each 
other. And then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which 
was placed there, and preached a sermon from the text, “ Though 
I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth 
me nothing.” When you think of the charity of burning men 
alive, you may imagine that this learned doctor had a rather 
brazen face. Ridley would have answered his sermon when it 
came to an end, but was not allowed. When Latimer was 
stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself, under his 
other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in it before 
all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, that, 
whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes 
before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge 
that he was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley’s 
brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder; and, when 
they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. 
Then a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. “ Be of good 
comfort, Master Ridley,” said Latimer at that awful moment, 
“and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, 
by God’s grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out.” 
And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he 
were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face 
with them, and was heard to cry, “ Father of Heaven ! receive 
my soul.” He died quickly ; but the fire, after having burned 
the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the 
iron post, and crying, “ Oh, I cannot burn! Oh, for Christ’s 
sake, let the fire come unto me ! ” And still, when his brother- 
in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through the 
blinding smoke, still dismally crying, “ Oh, I cannot burn, I 
cannot burn ! ” At last the gunpowder caught fire, and ended 
his miseries. 

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his 
tremendous account before God, for the cruelties he had so 
much assisted in committing. 

Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought 
out again in February, for more examining and trying, by 
Bonner, Bishop of London, — another man of blood, who 
had succeeded to Gardiner’s work, even in his lifetime, when 
Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer was now degraded as a 
priest, and left for death; but if the queen hated any one on 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


279 


earth, she hated him; and it was resolved that he should he 
ruined and disgraced to the utmost. There is no doubt that 
the queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds, 
because they wrote to the council, urging them to be active in 
the kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer was known not 
to be a firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with 
artful people, and inducing him to recant to the unreformed 
religion. Deans and friars visited him, played at bowls with 
him, showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with 
him, gave him money for his prison comforts, and induced him 
to sign, I fear, as many as six recantations. But when, after 
all, he was taken out to be burnt, he was nobly true to his 
better self, and made a glorious end. 

After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day 
(who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in 
prison), required him to make a public confession of his faith 
before the people. This Cole did, expecting that he would 
declare himself a Roman Catholic. “ I will make a profession 
of my faith,” said Cranmer, “and with a good will too.” 

Than he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of 
his robe a written prayer, and read it aloud. That done, he 
knelt and said the Lord’s Prayer, all the people joining ; and 
then he arose again, and told them that he believed in the Bible ; 
and that in what he had lately written, he had written what was 
not the truth; and that, because his right hand had signed those 
papers, he would burn his right hand first when he came to the 
fire. As for the Pope, he did refuse him and denounce him, 
as the enemy of Heaven. Hereupon the pious Dr. Cole cried 
out to the guards to stop that heretic’s mouth, and take him 
away. 

So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, where 
he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. 
And he stood before the people with a bald head and a white 
and flowing beard. He was so firm now, when the worst was 
come, that he again declared against his recantation, and was so 
impressive and so undismayed that a certain lord, who was one 
of the directors of the execution, called out to his men to make 
haste. When the fire was lighted, Cranmer, true to his latest 
word, stretched out his right hand, and crying out, “ This hand 
hath offended ! ” held it among the flames, until it blazed and 
burned away. His heart was found entire among his ashes, and 


282 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


heavy a present, that she was obliged to take it into her carriage 
with both hands. The coronation was a great success; and on 
the next day one of the courtiers presented a petition to the 
new queen, praying that, as it was the custom to release some 
prisoner on such occasions, she would have the goodness to 
release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
and also the Apostle St. Paul, who had been for some time 
shut up in a strange language, so that the people could not get 
at them. 

To this the queen replied that it would be better first to in¬ 
quire of themselves whether they desired to be released or not; 
and as a means of finding out, a great public discussion — a sort 
of religious tournament — was appointed to take place between 
certain champions of the two religions, in Westminster Abbey. 
You may suppose that it was soon made pretty clear to common 
sense, that for people to benefit by what they repeat or read, it 
is rather necessary they should understand something about it. 
Accordingly, a church service in plain English was settled, and 
other laws and regulations were made, completely establishing 
the great work of the Reformation. The Romish bishops and 
champions were not harshly dealt with, all things considered; 
and the queen’s ministers were both prudent and merciful. 

The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate cause 
of the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as occurred in 
it, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. We will try to under¬ 
stand, in as few words as possible, who Mary was, what she 
was, and how she came to be a thorn in the royal pillow of 
Elizabeth. 

She was the daughter of the queen regent of Scotland, Mary 
of Guise. She had been married, when a mere child, to the 
dauphin, the son and heir of the king of France. The Pope, 
who pretended that no one could rightfully wear the crown of 
England without his gracious permission, was strongly opposed 
to Elizabeth, who had not asked for the said gracious permis¬ 
sion. And as Mary, Queen of Scots, would have inherited the 
English crown in right of her birth, supposing the English Par¬ 
liament not to have altered the succession, the Pope himself, 
and most of the discontented who were followers of his, main¬ 
tained that Mary was the rightful queen of England, and Eliza¬ 
beth the wrongful queen. Mary, being so closely connected 
with France, and France being jealous of England, there was 



LINLITHGOW PALACE, BIRTHPLACE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 








A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


283 


far greater danger in this than there would have been if she had 
had no alliance with that great power. And when her young 
husband, on the death of his father, became Francis the Second, 
king of France, the matter grew very serious. For the young 
couple styled themselves king and queen of England, and the 
Pope was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he 
could. 

Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern 
and powerful preacher, named John Knox, and other such men, 
had been making fierce progress in Scotland. It was still a 
half-savage country, where there was a great deal of murdering 
and rioting continually going on ; and the reformers, instead of 
reforming those evils as they should have done, went to work 
in the ferocious old Scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels 
waste, pulling down pictures and altars, and knocking about the 
Gray Friars, and the Black Friars, and the White Friars, and 
the friars of all sorts of colours, in all directions. This obdu¬ 
rate and harsh spirit of the Scottish reformers (the Scotch have 
always been rather a sullen and frowning people in religious 
matters) put up the blood of the Romish French court, and 
caused France to send troops over to Scotland, with the hope 
of setting the friars of all sorts of colours on their legs again; 
of conquering that country first, and England afterwards, and 
so crushing the Beformation all to pieces. The Scottish re¬ 
formers, who had formed a great league which they called the 
Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to Elizabeth that, 
if the reformed religion got the worst of it with them, it would 
be likely to get the worst of it in England too; and thus Eliza¬ 
beth, though she had a high notion of the rights of kings and 
queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to Scotland to 
support the reformers, who were in arms against their sovereign. 
All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at Edinburgh, 
under which the French consented to depart from the kingdom. 
By a separate treaty, Mary and her young husband engaged to 
renounce their assumed title of king and queen of England. 
But this treaty they never fulfilled. 

It happened soon after matters had got to this state, that the 
young French king died, leaving Mary a young widow. She 
was then invited by her Scottish subjects to return home and 
reign over them; and, as she was not now happy where she 
was, she, after a little time, complied. 


284 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Elizabeth had been queen three years when Mary, Queen of 
Scots, embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarrelling coun¬ 
try. As she came out of the harbour, a vessel was lost before 
her eyes; and she said, “ 0 good God! what an omen this is 
for such a voyage! ” She was very fond of Erance, and sat on 
the deck, looking hack at it and weeping, until it was quite 
dark. When she went to bed, she directed to he called at 
daybreak, if the French coast were still visible, that she might 
behold it for the last time. As it proved to he a clear morning, 
this was done; and she again wept for the country she was 
leaving, and said many times, “ Farewell, Erance! Farewell, 
Erance! I shall never see thee again ! ” All this was long 
remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in a fair 
young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am afraid it gradually 
came, together with her other distresses, to surround her with 
greater sympathy than she deserved. 

When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the 
palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among un¬ 
couth strangers, and wild, uncomfortable customs, very different 
from her experiences in the court of France. The very people 
who were disposed to love her made her head ache, when she 
was tired out by her voyage, with a serenade of discordant 
music, — a fearful concert of bagpipes, I suppose, — and brought 
her and her train home to her palace on miserable little Scotch 
horses that appeared to be half starved. Among the people 
who were not disposed to love her, she found the powerful 
leaders of the Reformed Church, who were bitter upon her 
amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and dan¬ 
cing as works of the Devil. John Knox himself often lectured 
her, violently and angrily, and did much to make her life un¬ 
happy. All these reasons confirmed her old attachment to the 
Romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, most impru¬ 
dently and dangerously, both for herself and for England too, 
to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the Romish Church, 
that, if she ever succeeded to the English crown, she would set 
up that religion again. In reading her unhappy history, you 
must always remember this; and also that during her whole 
life she was constantly put forward against the queen, in some 
form or other, by the Romish party. 

That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like 
her is pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, 



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A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


285 


and had an extraordinary dislike to people being married. She 
treated Lady Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, 
with such shameful severity, for no other reason than her being 
secretly married, that she died, and her husband was ruined; 
so, when a second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, 
probably Elizabeth disliked her more. Not that Elizabeth 
wanted suitors of her own; for they started up from Spain, 
Austria, Sweden, and England. Her English lover at this 
time, and one whom she much favoured too, was Lord Robert 
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, — himself secretly married to Amy 
Robsart, the daughter of an English gentleman, whom he was 
strongly suspected of causing to be murdered, down at his coun¬ 
try seat, Cumnor Hall in Berkshire, that he might be free to 
marry the queen. Upon this story, the great writer, Sir Walter 
Scott, has founded one of his best romances. But if Elizabeth 
knew how to lead her handsome favourite on, for her own 
vanity and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own 
pride; and his love, and all the other proposals, came to no¬ 
thing. The queen always declared in good set speeches, that 
she would never be married at all, but would live and die a 
maiden queen. It was a very pleasant and meritorious declara¬ 
tion, I suppose; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so much 
that I am rather tired of it myself. 

Divers princes proposed to marry Mary; but the English 
court had reasons for being jealous of them all, and even pro¬ 
posed, as a matter of policy, that she should marry that very 
Earl of Leicester who had aspired to be the husband of Eliza¬ 
beth. At last, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox, and 
himself descended from the Royal Family of Scotland, went 
over with Elizabeth’s consent to try his fortune at Holyrood. 
He was a tall simpleton, and could dance and play the guitar; 
but I know of nothing else he could do, unless it were to get 
very drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a contemptible 
spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways. However, 
he gained Mary’s heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of his 
object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, David Rizzio, 
who had great influence with her. He soon married the queen. 
This marriage does not say much for her; but what followed 
will presently say less. 

Mary’s brother, the Earl of Murray, and head of the Protes¬ 
tant party in Scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on 


286 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


religious grounds, and partly, perhaps, from personal dislike of 
the very contemptible bridegroom. When it had taken place, 
through Mary’s gaining over to it the more powerful of the 
lords about her, she banished Murray for his pains; and when 
he and some other nobles rose in arms to support the reformed 
religion, she herself, within a month of her wedding-day, rode 
against them in armour with loaded pistols in her saddle. 
Driven out of Scotland, they presented themselves before Eliza¬ 
beth, who called them traitors in public, and assisted them in 
private, according to her crafty nature. 

Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to 
hate her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David 
Rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain her favour, and 
whom he now believed to be her lover. He hated Rizzio to 
that extent, that he made a compact with Lord Ruthven and 
three other lords to get rid of him by murder. The wicked 
agreement they made in solemn secrecy upon the first of March, 
1566, and on the night of Saturday, the ninth, the conspirators 
were brought by Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, 
into a range of rooms where they knew that Mary was sitting 
at supper with her sister, Lady Argyle, and this doomed man. 
When they went into the room, Darnley took the queen round 
the waist, and Lord Ruthven, who had risen from a bed of sick¬ 
ness to do this murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning on 
two men. Rizzio ran behind the queen for shelter and protec¬ 
tion. “ Let him come out of the room,” said Ruthven. “ He 
shall not leave the room,” replied the queen ; “ I read his 
danger in your face, and it is my will that he remain here.” 
They then set upon him, struggled with him, overturned the 
table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-six stabs. 
When the queen heard that he was dead, she said, u No more 
tears. I will think now of revenge ! ” 

Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and pre¬ 
vailed on the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators, and fly with 
her to Dunbar. There he issued a proclamation, audaciously 
and falsely denying that he had any knowledge of the late 
bloody business; and there they were joined by the Earl Both- 
well and some other nobles. With their help, they raised eight 
thousand men, returned to Edinburgh, and drove the assassins 
into England. Mary soon afterwards gave birth to a son, —• 
still thinking of revenge. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 287 

That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband 
after his late cowardice and treachery than she had had before 
was natural enough. There is little doubt that she now began 
to love Bothwell instead, and to plan with him means of getting 
rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such power over her, that he 
induced her even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio. The ar¬ 
rangements for the christening of the young prince were intrusted 
to him, and he was one of the most important people at the 
ceremony, where the child was named James; Elizabeth being 
his godmother, though not present at the occasion. A week 
afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his father’s 
house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the smallpox, she sent 
her own physician to attend him. But there is reason to appre¬ 
hend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she 
knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another month 
proposed to one of the late conspirators against Rizzio to mur¬ 
der Darnley, “ for that it was the queen’s mind that he should 
be taken away.” It is certain that on that very day she wrote 
to her ambassador in France, complaining of him, and yet went 
immediately to Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him, 
and to love him very much. If she wanted to get him in her 
power, she succeeded to her heart’s content; for she induced 
him to go back with her to Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead 
of the palace, a lone house outside the city called the Kirk of 
Field. Here he lived for about a week. One Sunday night, 
she remained with him until ten o’clock, and then left him to 
go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given in cele¬ 
bration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants. At 
two o’clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great ex¬ 
plosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms. 

Darnley’s body was found next day lying under a tree at 
some distance. How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched 
by gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and 
strangely committed, it is impossible to discover. The deceitful 
character of Mary and the deceitful character of Elizabeth have 
rendered almost every part of their joint history uncertain and 
obscure. But I fear that Mary was unquestionably a party to 
her husband’s murder, and that this was the revenge she had 
threatened. The Scotch people universally believed it. Voices 
cried out in the streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, 
for justice on the murderess. Placards were posted by unknown 


288 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


hands in the public places, denouncing Bothwell as the mur¬ 
derer, and the queen as his accomplice; and when he afterwards 
married her (though himself already married), previously mak¬ 
ing a show of taking her prisoner by force, the indignation of 
the people knew no hounds. The women particularly are de¬ 
scribed as having been quite frantic against the queen, and to 
have hooted and cried after her in the streets with terrific 
vehemence. 

Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife 
had lived together but a month, when they were separated for¬ 
ever by the success of a band of Scotch nobles who associated 
against them* for the protection of the young prince, whom Both¬ 
well had vainly endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would 
certainly have murdered if the Earl of Mar, in whose hands the 
boy was, had not been firmly and honourably faithful to his 
trust. Before this angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where 
he died, a prisoner and mad, nine miserable years afterwards. 
Mary, being found by the associated lords to deceive them at 
every turn, was sent a prisoner to Lochleven Castle j which, as 
it stood in the midst of a lake, could only be approached by 
boat. Here one Lord Lindsay, who was so much of a brute 
that the nobles would have done better if they had chosen a 
mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign her abdica¬ 
tion, and appoint Murray regent of Scotland. Here, too, Murray 
saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state. 

She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, 
dull prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, 
and the moving shadows of the water on the room walls; but 
she could not rest there, and more than once tried to escape. 
The first time she had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes 
of her own washerwoman; but putting up her hand to prevent 
one of the boatmen from lifting her veil, the men suspected her, 
seeing how white it was, and rowed her back again. A short 
time afterwards, her fascinating manners enlisted in her cause a 
boy in the castle, called the little Douglas, who, while the fam¬ 
ily were at supper, stole the keys of the great gate, went softly 
out with the queen, locked the gate on the outside, and rowed 
her away across the lake, sinking the keys as they went along. 
On the opposite shore she was met by another Douglas, and 
some few lords; and so accompanied, rode away on horseback 
to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men. Here she 



LOCHLEVEN CASTLE 
















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


289 


issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she had signed 
in her prison was illegal, and requiring the regent to yield to his 
lawful queen. Being a steady soldier, and in no way discom¬ 
posed, although he was without an army, Murray pretended to 
treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal 
to her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarter of an 
hour he cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride 
on horseback of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at 
Dundrennan Abbey, whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth’s 
dominions. . 

Mary, Queen of Scots, came to England to her own ruin, the 
trouble of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many, in 
1568. How she left it and the world, nineteen years after¬ 
wards, we have now to see. 

PART THE SECOND 

When Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in England, without 
money and even without any other clothes than those she wore, 
she wrote to Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and 
injured piece of royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige 
her Scottish subjects to take her back again and obey her. But 
as her character was already known in England to be a very 
different one from what she made it out to be, she was told in 
answer that she must first clear herself. Made uneasy by this 
condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, would have gone 
to Spain, or to Erance, or would even have gone back to Scot¬ 
land. But as her doing either would have been likely to 
trouble England afresh, it was decided that she should be de¬ 
tained here. She first came to Carlisle, and after that was 
moved about from castle to castle, as was considered necessary; 
but England she never left again. 

After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing 
herself, Mary, advised by Lord Herries, her best friend in Eng¬ 
land, agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish 
noblemen who made them would attend to maintain them before 
such English noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint for that pur¬ 
pose. Accordingly, such an assembly, under the name of a 
conference, met, first at York, and afterwards at Hampton 
Court. In its presence Lord Lennox, Darnley’s father, openly 
charged Mary with the murder of his son; and whatever Mary’s 


290 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


friends may now say or write in her behalf, there is no doubt 
that when her brother, Murray, produced against her a casket 
containing certain guilty letters and verses which he stated to 
have passed between her and Bothwell, she withdrew from the 
inquiry. Consequently, it is to he supposed that she was then 
considered guilty by those who had the best opportunities of 
judging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards 
arose in her behalf was a very generous but not a very reason¬ 
able one. 

However, the Duke of Norfolk, an honourable but rather 
weak nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly 
because he was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded 
by artful plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that 
he would like to marry the Queen of Scots, though he was a 
little frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. This idea 
being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen of Eliza¬ 
beth’s court, and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (be¬ 
cause it was objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), 
Mary expressed her approval of it, and the king of France and 
the king of Spain are supposed to have done the same. It was 
not so quietly planned, though, but that it came to Elizabeth’s 
ears, who warned the duke “ to be careful -what sort of a pillow 
he was going to lay his head upon.” He made a humble reply 
at the time, but turned sulky soon afterwards, and, being con¬ 
sidered dangerous, was sent to the Tower. 

Thus from the moment of Mary’s coming to England she 
began to be the centre of plots and miseries. 

A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these; 
and it was only checked by many executions and much blood¬ 
shed. It was followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and 
some of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, 
place Mary on the throne, and restore the unreformed religion. 
It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew and approved 
of this; and the Pope himself was so hot in the matter, that he 
issued a bull, in which he openly called Elizabeth the “ pre¬ 
tended queen” of England, excommunicated her, and excom¬ 
municated all her subjects who should continue to obey her. A 
copy of this miserable paper got into London, and was found 
one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London’s gate. 
A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was found in 
the chamber of a student of Lincoln’s Inn, who confessed, being 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


291 


put upon the rack, that he had received it from one John Fel¬ 
ton, a rich gentleman who lived across the Thames, near South¬ 
wark. This John Felton, being put upon the rack too, con¬ 
fessed that he had posted the placard on the bishop’s gate. For 
this offence he was, within four days, taken to St. Paul’s 
Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. As to the Pope’s 
hull, the people by the Reformation having thrown off the 
Pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for the Pope’s 
throwing off them. It was a mere dirty piece of paper, and not 
half so powerful as a street-ballad. 

On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial the 
poor Duke of Norfolk was released. It would have been well 
for him if he had kept away from the Tower ever more, and 
from the snares that had taken him there. But even while he 
was in that dismal place he corresponded with Mary; and as 
soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. Being dis¬ 
covered in correspondence with the Pope, with a view to a 
rising in England which should force Elizabeth to consent to 
his marriage with Mary, and to repeal the laws against the 
Catholics, he was re-committed to the Tower, and brought to 
trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the 
lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block. 

It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and 
between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a hu¬ 
mane woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding 
the blood of people of great name who were popular in the 
country. Twice she commanded and countermanded the execu¬ 
tion of this duke; and it did not take place until five months after 
his trial. The scaffold was erected on Tower Hill; and there 
he died like a brave man. He refused to have his eyes band¬ 
aged, saying that he was not at all afraid of death; and he 
admitted the justice of his sentence, and was much regretted by 
the people. 

Although Mary had shrunk at "the most important time from 
disproving her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything 
that would admit it. All such proposals as were made to her 
by Elizabeth for her release required that admission in some 
form or other, and therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both 
women being artful and treacherous, and neither ever trusting 
the other, it was not likely that they could ever make an agree¬ 
ment. So the Parliament, aggravated by what the Pope had 


292 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


done, made new and strong laws against the spreading of the 
Catholic religion in England, and declared it treason in any one 
to say that the queen and her successors were not the lawful 
sovereigns of England. It would have done more than this hut 
for Elizabeth’s moderation. 

Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great 
sects of religious people — or people who called themselves so 
— in England; that is to say, those who belonged to the 
reformed church, those who belonged to the unreformed church, 
and those who were called the Puritans, because they said that 
they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in all the 
Church service. These last were for the most part an uncom¬ 
fortable people, who thought it highly meritorious to dress in 
■hideous manner, talk through their noses, and oppose all harm¬ 
less enjoyments. But they were powerful too, and very much 
in earnest; and they were one and all the determined enemies 
of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling in England was 
further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which Pro¬ 
testants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores 
of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with 
every cruelty that can be imagined; and at last, in the autumn 
of the year 1572, one of the greatest barbarities ever committed 
in the world took place at Paris. 

It is called in history The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, be¬ 
cause it took place on St. Bartholomew’s Eve. The day fell on 
Saturday, the twenty-third of August. On that day all the great 
leaders of the Protestants (who were there called Huguenots) 
were assembled together, for the purpose, as was represented to 
them, of doing honour to the marriage of their chief, the young 
king of Navarre, with the sister of Charles the Ninth, a misera¬ 
ble young king who then occupied the French throne. This 
dull creature was made to believe by his mother, and other 
fierce Catholics about him, that the Huguenots meant to take 
his life; and he was persuaded to give secret orders that, on 
the tolling of a great bell, they should be fallen upon by an 
overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered wherever 
they could be found. When the appointed hour was close at 
hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken 
into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. 
The moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During 
all that night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, 



ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD 



















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


293 


fired the houses, shot and stahhed the Protestants, men, women;, 
and children, and flung their bodies into the streets. They w r ere 
shot at in the streets as they passed along, and their blood ran 
down the gutters. Upwards of ten thousand Protestants were 
killed in Paris alone ; in all Prance, four or five times that num¬ 
ber. To return thanks to Heaven for these diabolical murders, 
the Pope and his train actually went in public procession at 
Pome; and, as if this were not shame enough for them, they 
had a medal struck to commemorate the event. But however 
comfortable the wholesale murders were to these high authori¬ 
ties, they had not that soothing effect upon the doll-king. I 
am happy to state that he never knew a moment’s peace after¬ 
wards ; that he was continually crying out that he saw the 
Huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling dead before 
him; and that he died within a year, shrieking and yelling and 
raving to that degree that, if all the Popes who had ever lived 
had been rolled into one, they would not have afforded his 
guilty majesty the slightest consolation. 

When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, 
it made a powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they 
began to run a little wild against the Catholics at about this 
time, this fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days of 
bloody Queen Mary, must he remembered in their excuse. The 
court was not quite so honest as the people ; hut perhaps it 
sometimes is not. It received the French ambassador, with all 
the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, and keeping a 
profound silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which 
he had made to Elizabeth only two days before the eve of St. 
Bartholomew, on behalf of the Duke of Alengon, the French 
king’s brother, a hoy of seventeen, still went on; while, on the 
other hand, in her usual crafty way, the queen secretly supplied 
the Huguenots with money and weapons. 

I must say, that for a queen who made all those fine speeches, 
of which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about living 
and dying a maiden queen, Elizabeth was “ going ” to he married 
pretty often. Besides always having some English favourite or 
other whom she by turns encouraged, and swore at, and knocked 
about, — for the maiden queen was very free with her fists, — 
she held this French duke, off and on, through several years. 
When he at last came over to England, the marriage articles 
were actually drawn up, and it was settled that the wedding 


294 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


should take place in six weeks. The queen was then so bent 
upon it, that she prosecuted a poor Puritan named Stubbs, and 
a poor bookseller named Page, for writing and publishing a 
pamphlet against it. Their right hands were chopped off for 
> this crime ; and poor Stubbs, more loyal than I should have 
been myself under the circumstances, immediately pulled off his 
hat with his left hand, and cried, “God save the Queen!” 
Stubbs was cruelly treated; for the marriage never took place 
after all, though the queen pledged herself to the duke with a 
ring from her own finger. He went away, no better than he 
came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years altogether ; 
and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth, 
who appears to have been really fond of him. It is not much 
to her credit, for he was a bad enough member of a bad family. 

To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of priests 
who were very busy in England, and who were much dreaded. 
These were the Jesuits (who were everywhere in all sorts of 
disguises) and the Seminary Priests. The people had a great 
horror of the first, because they were known to have taught 
that murder was lawful if it were done with an object of which 
they approved ; and they had a great horror of the second, be¬ 
cause they came to teach the old religion, and to be the succes¬ 
sors of “ Queen Mary’s priests,” as those yet lingering in Eng¬ 
land were called, when they should die out. The severest laws 
were made against them, and were most unmercifully executed. 
Those who sheltered them in their houses often suffered 
heavily for what was an act of humanity ; and the rack, that 
cruel torture which tore men’s limbs asunder, was constantly 
kept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what was 
ever confessed by any one under that agony, must always be 
received with great doubt, as it is certain that people have fre¬ 
quently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to 
escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to have 
been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both among 
the Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with 
Spain, for the destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the placing of 
Mary on the throne, and for the revival of the old religion. 

If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, 
there were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, 
a great Protestant Dutch hero, the Prince of Orange, was shot 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


295 


by an assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and 
trained for the purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in 
this surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sover- 
eign; but she declined the honour, and sent them a small army 
instead, under the command of the Earl of Leicester, who, 
although a capital court favourite, was not much of a general. 
He did so little in Holland, that his campaign there would 
probably have been forgotten, but for its occasioning the death 
of one of the best writers, the best knights, and the best gentle¬ 
men, of that or any age. This was Sir Philip Sidney, who 
was wounded by a musket-ball in the thigh as he mounted a 
fresh horse, after having had his own killed under him. He 
had to ride back wounded, a long distance, and was very faint 
with fatigue and loss of blood, when some water, for which he 
had eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he was so good 
and gentle even then, that seeing a poor, badly wounded common 
soldier lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing 
eyes, he said, “ Thy necessity is greater than mine,” and gave 
it up to him. This touching action of a noble heart is perhaps 
as well known as any incident in history, — is as famous, far 
and wide, as the blood-stained Tower of London, with its axe 
and block and murders out of number. So delightful is an act 
of true humanity, and so glad are mankind to remember it! 

At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I 
suppose the people never did live under such continual terrors 
as those by which they were possessed now, of Catholic risings 
and burnings and poisonings, and I don’t know what. Still, we 
must always remember that they lived near and close to awful 
realities of that kind, and that with their experience it was not 
difficult to believe in any enormity. The government had the 
same fear, and did not take the best means of discovering the 
truth ; for besides torturing the suspected, it employed paid 
spies, who will always lie for their own profit. It even made 
some of the conspiracies it brought to light, by sending false 
letters to disaffected people, inviting them to join in pretended 
plots, which they too readily did. 

But one great real plot was at length discovered, and it 
ended the career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest 
named Ballard and a Spanish soldier named Savage, set on and 
encouraged by certain French priests, imparted a design to one 
Antony Babington — a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, 


296 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


who had been for some time a secret agent of Mary’s — for 
murdering the queen. Babington then confided the scheme to 
some other Catholic gentlemen, who were his friends, and they 
joined in it heartily. They were vain, weak-headed young 
men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud of their 
plan ; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six choice 
spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington in an 
attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, 
one of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth’s wisest minister, Sir 
Erancis Walsingham, acquainted with the whole project from 
the first. The conspirators were completely deceived to the 
final point, when Babington gave Savage, because he was 
shabby, a ring from his finger, and some money from his purse, 
wherewith to buy himself new clothes in which to kill the 
queen. Walsingham, having then full evidence against the 
whole band, and two letters of Mary’s besides, resolved to seize 
them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, 
one by one, and hid themselves in St. John’s Wood, and other 
places, which really were hiding-places then ; but they were all 
taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gentleman 
was sent from court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being 
involved in the discovery. Her friends have complained that 
she was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not 
appear very likely, for she was going out a hunting that very 
morning. 

Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France 
who had good information of what was secretly doing, that, in 
holding Mary alive, she held “ the wolf who would devour her.” 
The Bishop of London had, more lately, given the queen’s 
favourite minister the advice in writing, “ forthwith to cut off 
the Scottish queen’s head.” The question now was, what to 
do with her. The Earl of Leicester wrote a little note home 
from Holland, recommending that she should be quietly poisoned ; 
that noble favourite having accustomed his mind, it is pos¬ 
sible, to remedies of that nature. His black advice, however, 
was disregarded; and she was brought to trial at Eotheringay 
Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal of forty, composed 
of both religions. There, and in the Star Chamber at West¬ 
minster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended herself with 
great ability, but could only deny the confessions that had been 
made by Babington and others; could only call her own letters, 



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produced against her by her own secretaries, forgeries ; and, in 
short, could only deny everything. She was found guilty, and 
declared to have incurred the penalty of death. The Parlia¬ 
ment met, approved the sentence, and prayed the queen to have 
it executed. The queen replied that she requested them to 
consider whether no means could be found of saving Mary’s 
life without endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, 
No; and the citizens illuminated their houses and lighted bon¬ 
fires, in token of their joy that all these plots and troubles were 
to be ended by the death of the Queen of Scots. 

She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter 
to the queen of England, making three entreaties: first, that 
she might be buried in France; secondly, that she might not be 
executed in secret, but before her servants and some others; 
thirdly, that, after her death, her servants should not be molested, 
but should be suffered to go home with the legacies she left 
them. It was an affecting letter ; and Elizabeth shed tears over 
it, but sent no answer. Then came a special ambassador from 
France, and another from Scotland, to intercede for Mary’s life; 
and then the nation began to clamour, more and more, for her 
death. 

What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can 
never be known now; but I strongly suspect her of only wish¬ 
ing one thing more than Mary’s death, and that was to keep 
free of the blame of it. On the first of February, 1587, Lord 
Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the execution, the 
queen sent to the Secretary Davison to bring it to her that she 
might sign it; which she did. Next day, when Davison told 
her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such haste was 
necessary. Next day but one, she joked about it, and swore 
a little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain that 
it was not yet done; but still she would' not be plain with 
those about her. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and 
Shrewsbury, with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with 
the warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to prepare 
for death. 

When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made a 
frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went 
to bed, slept for some hours, and then arose and passed the 
remainder of the night saying prayers. In the morning she 
dressed herself in her best clothes ; and at eight o’clock, when 


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the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave of her servants 
who were there assembled praying with her, and went down 
stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in the other. 
Two of her women and four of her men were allowed to be 
present in the hall ; where a low scaffold, only two feet from 
the ground, was erected, and covered with black; and where 
the executioner from the Tower, and his assistant, stood, dressed 
in black velvet. The hall was full of people. While the 
sentence was being read, she sat upon a stool; and when it 
was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had done before. 
The Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in their 
Protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to her ; 
to which she replied that she died in the Catholic religion, and 
they need not trouble themselves about that matter. When 
her head and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said 
that she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, or 
before so much company. Einally, one of her women fastened 
a cloth over her face ; and she laid her neck upon the block, 
and repeated more than once in Latin, “ Into thy hands, O 
Lord ! I commend my spirit. ” Some say her head was struck 
off in two blows, some say in three. However that be, when 
it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the 
false hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as that of a 
woman of seventy, though she was at that time only in her 
forty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone. 

But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered 
under her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, 
and who lay down beside her headless body when all her earthly 
sorrows were over. 


PART THE THIRD 

On its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the 
sentence had been executed on the Queen of Scots, she showed 
the utmost grief and rage, drove her favourites from her with 
violent indignation, and sent Davison to the Tower; from 
which place he was only released in the end by paying an im¬ 
mense fine, which completely ruined him. Elizabeth not only 
over-acted her part in making these pretences, hut most basely 
reduced to poverty one of her faithful servants for no other 
fault than obeying her commands. 


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299 


James, King of Scotland, Mary’s son, made a show like¬ 
wise of being very angry on the occasion; but he was a pen¬ 
sioner of England to the amount of five thousand pounds a 
year ; and he had known very little of his mother, and he pos¬ 
sibly regarded her as the murderer of his father, and he soon 
took it quietly. 

Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater 
things than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic 
religion and punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing that 
he and the Prince of Parma were making great preparations for 
this purpose, in order to be beforehand with them, sent out 
' Admiral Drake (a famous navigator, who had sailed about the 
world, and had already brought great plunder from Spain) to 
the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a hundred vessels full of 
stores. This great loss obliged the Spaniards to put off the 
invasion for a year; but it was none the less formidable for 
that, amounting to one hundred and thirty ships, nineteen thou¬ 
sand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two thousand slaves, and 
between two and three thousand great guns. England was not 
idle in making ready to resist this great force. All the men 
between sixteen years old and sixty were trained and drilled; 
the national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at first) 
was enlarged by public contributions, and by private ships, fitted 
out by noblemen; the city of London, of its own accord, fur¬ 
nished double the number of ships and men that it was required 
to provide ; and if ever the national spirit was up in England, 
it was up all through the country to resist the Spaniards. Some 
of the queen’s advisers were for seizing the principal English 
Catholics, and putting them to death ; but the queen — who, to 
her honour, used to say that she would never believe any ill of 
her subjects which a parent would not believe of her own chil¬ 
dren— rejected the advice, and only confined a few of those 
who were the most suspected in the fens in Lincolnshire. The 
great body of Catholics deserved this confidence, for they be¬ 
haved most loyally, nobly, and bravely. 

So with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, 
and with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the sol¬ 
diers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the coun¬ 
try waited for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, which 
was called The Invincible Armada. The queen herself, riding 
in armour on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex and the 


300 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Earl of Leicester holding her bridle-rein, made a brave speech 
to the troops at Tilbury Fort, opposite Gravesend, which was 
received with such enthusiasm as is seldom known. Then came 
the Spanish Armada into the English Channel, sailing along in 
the form of a half-moon, of such great size that it was seven 
miles broad. But the English were quickly upon it; and woe 
then to all the Spanish ships that dropped a little out of the 
half-moon, for the English took them instantly! And it soon 
appeared that the great Armada was anything hut invincible; 
for on a summer night, hold Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships 
right into the midst of it. In terrible consternation, the Span¬ 
iards tried to get out to sea, and so became dispersed; the Eng¬ 
lish pursued them at a great advantage. A storm came on, and 
drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals; and the swift end 
of the invincible fleet was that it lost thirty great ships and ten 
thousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home again. 
Being afraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed all round 
Scotland and Ireland ; some of the ships getting cast away on 
the latter coast in bad weather, the Irish, who were a kind of 
savages, plundered those vessels, and killed their crews. So 
ended this great attempt to invade and conquer England. And 
I think it will be a long time before any other invincible fleet, 
coming to England with the same object, will fare much better 
than the Spanish Armada. 

Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of English 
bravery, he was so little the wiser for it as still to entertain 
his old designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of placing 
his daughter on the English throne. But the Earl of Essex, 
Sir Walter Baleigh, Sir Thomas Howard, and some other distin¬ 
guished leaders put to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of 
Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory over the shipping 
assembled there, and got possession of the town. In obedience 
to the queen’s express instructions, they behaved with great 
humanity ; and the principal loss of the Spaniards was a vast 
sum of money which they had to pay for ransom. This was 
one of many gallant achievements on the sea effected in this 
reign. Sir Walter Baleigh himself, after marrying a maid of 
honour, and giving offence to the maiden queen thereby, had 
already sailed to South America in search of gold. 

The Earl of Leicester was now dead; and so was Sir Thomas 
Walsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. The 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


301 


principal favourite was the Earl of Essex, a spirited and hand¬ 
some man, a favourite with the people, too, as well as with the 
queen, and possessed of many admirable qualities. It was 
much debated at court whether there should be peace with 
Spain, or no; and he was very urgent for war. He also tried 
hard to have his own way in the appointment of a deputy to 
govern in Ireland. One day, while this question was in dispute, 
he hastily took offence, and turned his back upon the queen; as 
a gentle reminder of which impropriety the queen gave him a 
tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to the devil. 
He went home instead, and did not reappear at court for half 
a year or so, when he and the queen were reconciled, though 
never (as some suppose) thoroughly. 

From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex and that of the 
queen seemed to be blended together. The Irish were still 
perpetually quarrelling and fighting among themselves ; and he 
went over to Ireland as lord lieutenant, to the great joy of his 
enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh among the rest), who were glad to 
have so dangerous a rival far off. Hot being by any means suc¬ 
cessful there, and knowing that his enemies would take advan¬ 
tage of that circumstance to injure him with the queen, he came 
home again, though against her orders. The queen, being taken 
by surprise when he appeared before her, gave him her hand to 
kiss, and he was overjoyed, though it was not a very lovely 
hand by this time; but in the course of the same day, she 
ordered him to confine himself to his room, and two or three 
days afterwards had him taken into custody. With the same 
sort of caprice, — and as capricious an old woman she now was 
as ever wore a crown, or a head either, — she sent him broth 
from her own table on his falling ill from anxiety, and cried 
about him. 

He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his 
books, and he did so for a time; not the least happy time, I 
dare say, of his life. But it happened, unfortunately for him, 
that he held a monopoly in sweet wines, which means that 
nobody could sell them without purchasing his permission. 
This right, which was only for a term, expiring, he applied to 
have it renewed. The queen refused, with the rather strong 
observation, — but she did make strong observations, — that an 
unruly beast must be stinted in his food. Upon this the angry 
earl, who had been already deprived of many offices, thought him- 


302 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


self in danger of complete ruin, and turned against the queen, 
whom he called a vain old woman, who had grown as crooked in 
her mind as she had in her figure. These uncomplimentary ex¬ 
pressions the ladies of the court immediately snapped up, and 
carried to the queen, whom they did not put in a better temper, 
you may believe. The same court ladies, when they had beautiful 
dark hair of their own, used to wear false red hair, to be like 
the queen. So they were not very high-spirited ladies, however 
high in rank. 

The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of 
his who used to meet at Lord Southampton’s house, was to 
obtain possession of the queen, and oblige her by force to dis¬ 
miss her ministers, and change her favourites. On Saturday, 
the seventh of February, 1601, the council, suspecting this, sum¬ 
moned the earl to come before them. He, pretending to he ill, 
declined. It was then settled among his friends that as the 
next day would be Sunday, when many of the citizens usually 
assembled at the Cross by St. Paul’s Cathedral, he should make 
one hold effort to induce them to rise, and follow him to the 
palace. 

So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents 
started out of his house, — Essex House by the Strand, with steps 
to the river, — having first shut up in it, as prisoners, some mem¬ 
bers of the council who came to examine him, and hurried into 
the city with the earl at their head, crying out, “ For the queen ! 
for the queen! A plot is laid for my life.” No one heeded 
them, however; and when they came to St. Paul’s, there were no 
citizens there. In the mean time the prisoners at Essex House 
had been released by one of the earl’s own friends ; he had 
been promptly proclaimed a traitor in the city itself; and the 
streets were barricaded with carts, and guarded by soldiers. 
The earl got back to his house by water, with difficulty ; and 
after an attempt to defend his house against the troops and 
cannon by which it was surrounded, gave himself up that night. 
He was brought to trial on the nineteenth, and found guilty ; 
on the twenty-fifth he was executed on Tower Hill, where he 
died, at thirty-four years old, both courageously and penitently. 
His step-father suffered with him. His enemy, Sir Walter 
Baleigh, stood near the scaffold all the time, but not so near as 
we shall see him stand, before we finish his history. 

In this case, as in the cases of the Duke of Norfolk and 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


303 


Mary, Queen of Scots, the queen had commanded, and counter¬ 
manded, and again commanded, the execution. It is probable 
that the death of her young and gallant favourite, in the prime 
of his good qualities, was never off her mind afterwards ; but 
she held out, the same vain, obstinate, and capricious woman, 
for another year. Then she danced before her court on a state 
occasion, and cut, I should think, a mighty ridiculous figure, 
doing so in an immense ruff, stomacher, and wig, at seventy 
years old. For another year still, she held out, but without 
any more dancing, and as a moody, sorrowful, broken creature. 
At last, on the tenth of March, 1603, having been ill of a very 
bad cold, and made worse by the death of the Countess of Not¬ 
tingham, who was her intimate friend, she fell into a stupor, 
and was supposed to be dead. She recovered her consciousness, 
however, and then nothing would induce her to go to bed; for 
she said that she knew that if she did she should never get up 
again. There she lay for ten days, on cushions on the floor, 
without any food, until the lord admiral got her into bed at 
last, partly by persuasions and partly by main force. When 
they asked her who should succeed her, ^ie replied that her 
seat had been the seat of kings, and that she would have for 
her successor, “ No rascal’s son, but a king’s.” Upon this, the 
lords present stared at one another, and took the liberty of ask¬ 
ing whom she meant; to which she replied, u Whom should I 
mean, but our cousin of Scotland ? ” This was on the twenty- 
third of March. They asked her once again that day, after she 
was speechless, whether she was still in the same mind. She 
struggled up in bed, and joined her hands over her head in the 
form of a crown, as the only reply she could make. At three 
o’clock next morning, she very quietly died, in the forty-fifth 
year of her reign. 

That reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever mem¬ 
orable by the distinguished men who flourished in it. Apart 
from the great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom it pro¬ 
duced, the names of Bacon, Spenser, and Shakespeare will 
always be remembered with pride and veneration by the civil¬ 
ised world, and will always impart (though with no great reason 
perhaps) some portion of their lustre to the name of Elizabeth 
herself. It was a great reign for discovery, for commerce, and 
for English enterprise and spirit in general. It was a great 
reign for the Protestant religion, and for the reformation which 


304 


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made England free. The queen was very popular, and, in her 
progresses or journeys about her dominions, was everywhere 
received with the liveliest joy. I think the truth is that she 
was not half so good as she had been made out, and not half so 
had as she had been made out. She had her fine qualities ; but 
she was coarse, capricious, and treacherous, and had all the faults 
of an excessively vain young woman long after she was an old 
one. On the whole, she had a great deal too much of her father 
in her to please me. 

Many improvements and luxuries were introduced, in the 
course of these five-and-forty years, in the general manner of 
living; but cock-fighting, hull-baiting, and bear-baiting were 
still the national amusements; and a coach was so rarely seen, 
and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, 
that even the queen herself, on many high occasions, rode on 
horseback on a pillion behind the lord chancellor. 





SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD ON AVON 



























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


305 


CHAPTER XXXII 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST 

PART THE FIRST 

11 Our cousin of Scotland ” was ugly, awkward, and shuffling, 
both in mind and person. His tongue was much too large for 
his mouth, his legs were much too weak for his body, and his 
dull goggle-eyes stared and rolled like an idiot’s. He was cun¬ 
ning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, 
a great swearer, and the most conceited man on earth. His fig¬ 
ure— what is commonly called rickety from his birth — pre¬ 
sented a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in thick padded 
clothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of which he lived 
in continual fear), of a grass-green colour from head to foot, 
with a hunting-horn dangling at his side instead of a sword, and 
his hat and feather sticking over one eye, or hanging on the 
back of his head, as he happened to toss it on. He used to loll 
on the necks of his favourite courtiers, and slobber their faces, 
and kiss and pinch their cheeks ; and the greatest favourite he 
ever had used to sign himself, in his letters to his royal master, 
his Majesty’s “ dog and slave,” and used to address his Majesty 
as “ his Sowship.” His majesty was the worst rider ever seen, 
and thought himself the best. He was one of the most imper¬ 
tinent talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever heard, and boasted 
of being unanswerable in all manner of argument. He wrote 
some of the most wearisome treatises ever read, — among others, 
a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer, — 
and thought himself a prodigy of authorship. He thought and 
wrote and said that a king had a right to make and unmake 
what laws he pleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody 
on earth. This is the plain true character of the personage 
whom the greatest men about the court praised and flattered to 
that degree that I doubt if there be anything much more shame¬ 
ful in the annals of human nature. 

He came to the English throne with great ease. The miser¬ 
ies of a disputed succession had been felt so long and so dread- 


306 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

fully that he was proclaimed within a few hours of Elizabeth’s 
death, and was accepted by the nation, even without being 
asked to give any pledge that he would govern well, or that he 
would redress crying grievances. He took a month to come 
from Edinburgh to London; and by way of exercising his new 
power, hanged a pickpocket on the journey without any trial, 
and knighted everybody he could lay hold of. He made two 
hundred knights before he got to his palace in London, and 
seven hundred before he had been in it three months. He also 
shovelled sixty-two new peers into the House of Lords; and 
there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among them, 
you may believe. 

His Sowship’s prime minister, Cecil (for I cannot do better 
than call his Majesty what his favourite called him), was the 
enemy of Sir Walter Baleigli, and also of Sir Walter’s political 
friend, Lord Cobham; and his Sowship’s first trouble was a 
plot originated by these two, and entered into by some others, 
with the old object of seizing the king, and keeping him in 
imprisonment until he should change his ministers. There 
were Catholic priests in the plot, and there were Puritan noble¬ 
men, too ; for although the Catholics and Puritans were strongly 
opposed to each other, they united at this time against his Sow- 
ship, because they knew that he had a design against both, after 
pretending to be friendly to each, — this design being to have 
only one high and convenient form of the Protestant religion, 
which everybody should be bound to belong to, whether they 
liked it or not. This plot was mixed up with another, which 
may or may not have had some reference to placing on the 
throne, at some time, the Lady Arabella Stuart, whose misfor¬ 
tune it was to be the daughter of the younger brother of his 
Sowship’s father, but who was quite innocent of any part in the 
scheme. Sir Walter Raleigh was accused on the confession of 
Lord Cobham, — a miserable creature, who said one thing at 
one time, and another thing at another time, and could be 
relied upon in nothing. The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh lasted 
from eight in the morning until nearly midnight. He defended 
himself with such eloquence, genius, and spirit against all accu¬ 
sations, and against the insults of Coke, the attorney general, 

— who, according to the custom of the time, foully abused him, 

— that those who went there detesting the prisoner came away 
admiring him, and declaring that anything so wonderful and so 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


307 


captivating was never heard. He was found guilty, neverthe¬ 
less, and sentenced to death. Execution was deferred, and he 
was taken to the Tower. The two Catholic priests, less fortu¬ 
nate, were executed with the usual atrocity; and Lord Cobham 
and two others were pardoned on the scaffold. His Sowship 
thought it wonderfully knowing in him to surprise the people 
by pardoning these three at the very block ; but blundering and 
bungling, as usual, he had very nearly over-reached himself, for 
the messenger on horseback, who brought the pardon, came so 
late that he was pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was 
obliged to shout and roar out what he came for. The miserable 
Cobham did not gain much by being spared that day. He lived, 
both as a prisoner and a beggar, utterly despised and miserably 
poor, for thirteen years, and then died in an old out-house 
belonging to one of his former servants. 

This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely shut up 
in the Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the Puri¬ 
tans on their presenting a petition to him, and had it all his 
own way, — not so very wonderful, as he w r ould talk continu¬ 
ally, and would not hear anybody else, — and filled the bishops 
with admiration. It was comfortably settled that there was to 
he only one form of religion, and that all men were to think 
exactly alike. But although this was arranged two centuries 
and a half ago, and although the arrangement was supported by 
much fining and imprisonment, I do not find that it is quite 
successful even yet. 

His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of him¬ 
self as a king, had a very low opinion of Parliament as a power 
that audaciously wanted to control him. When he called his 
first Parliament after he had been king a year, he accordingly 
thought that he would take pretty high ground with them, and 
told them that he commanded them “as an absolute king.” 
The Parliament thought those strong words, and saw the 
necessity of upholding their authority. His Sowship had three 
children : Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and the Princess 
Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of these, and we 
shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom con¬ 
cerning parliaments from his father’s obstinacy. 

Now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the 
Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the 
severe laws against it. And this so angered Robert Catesby, a 


308 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


restless Catholic gentleman of an old family, that he formed one 
of the most desperate and terrible designs ever conceived in the 
mind of man, — no less a scheme than the Gunpowder Plot. 

His object was, when the king, lords, and commons, should 
be assembled at the next opening of Parliament, to blow them 
up, one and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. The first 
person to whom he confided this horrible idea was Thomas 
Winter, a Worcestershire gentleman who had served in the 
army abroad, and had been secretly employed in Catholic pro¬ 
jects. While Winter was yet undecided, and when he had gone 
over to the Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish ambassador 
there whether there was any hope of Catholics being relieved 
through the intercession of the King of Spain with his Sowship, 
he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daring man, whom he had 
known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whose name 
was Guido — or Guy — Fawkes. Resolved to join the plot, he 
proposed it to this man, knowing him to be the man for any 
desperate deed; and they two came back to England together. 
Here they admitted two other conspirators, — Thomas Percy, re¬ 
lated to the Earl of Northumberland, and John Wright, his 
brother-in-law. All these met together in a solitary house in 
the open fields which were then near Clement’s Inn, now a 
closely blocked-up part of London; and when they had all 
taken the oath of secrecy, Catesby told the rest what his plan 
was. They then went up stairs into a garret, and received the 
sacrament from Father Gerard, a Jesuit, who is said not to have 
known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but who, I think, must 
have had his suspicions that there was something desperate 
afoot. 

Percy was a gentleman pensioner ; and as he had occasional 
duties to perform about the court, then kept at Whitehall, there 
would be nothing suspicious in his living at Westminster. So 
having looked well about him, and having found a house to let, 
the back of which joined the Parliament House, he hired it of 
a person named Ferris, for the purpose of undermining the wall. 
Having got possession of this house, the conspirators hired 
another on the Lambeth side of the Thames, which they used 
as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and other combustible 
matters. These were to be removed at night (and afterwards 
were removed), bit by bit, to the house at Westminster; and 
that there might be some trusty person to keep watch over the 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


309 


Lambeth stores, they admitted another conspirator, by name 
Robert Kay, a very poor Catholic gentleman. 

All these arrangements had been made some months; and it 
was a dark, wintry December night, when the conspirators, who 
had been in the mean time dispersed to avoid observation, met 
in the house at Westminster, and began to dig. They had laid 
in a good stock of eatables, to avoid going in and out, and they 
dug and dug with great ardour. But the wall being tremendously 
thick, and the work very severe, they took into their plot Chris¬ 
topher Wright, a younger brother of John Wright, that they 
might have a new pair of hands to help. And Christopher 
Wright fell to like a fresh man; and they dug and dug, by 
night and by day, and Fawkes stood sentinel all the time. And 
if any man’s heart seemed to fail him at all, Fawkes said, 
“ Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shot here; and 
there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered.” 
The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always 
prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that the king had 
prorogued the Parliament again, from the seventh of February, 
the day first fixed upon, until the third of October. When 
the conspirators knew this, they agreed to separate until after 
the Christmas holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the 
mean while, and never to write letters to one another on any 
account. So the house at Westminster was shut up again ; and 
I suppose the neighbours thought that those strange-looking 
men who lived there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were 
gone away to have a merry Christmas somewhere. 

It w T as the beginning of February, 1605, when Catesby met 
his fellow conspirators again at this Westminster house. He 
had now admitted three more,—John Grant, a Warwickshire 
gentleman of a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house 
near Stratford-upon-Avon, with a frowning wall all round it, 
and a deep moat; Robert Winter, eldest brother of Thomas; 
and Catesby’s own servant, Thomas Bates, who, Catesby thought, 
had had some suspicion of what his master was about. These 
three had all suffered more or less for their religion in Eliza¬ 
beth’s time. And now they all began to dig again; and they 
dug and dug, by night and by day. 

They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with 
such a fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders 
before them. They were filled with wild fancies. Sometimes 


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they thought they heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the 
earth under the Parliament House; sometimes they thought 
they heard low voices muttering about the Gunpowder Plot; 
once, in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling 
noise over their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. 
Every man stopped, and looked aghast at his neighbour, won¬ 
dering what had happened, when that bold prowler, Fawkes, 
who had been out to look, came in and told them that it was 
only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under the 
Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some other 
place. Upon this the conspirators, who with all their digging 
and digging had not yet dug through the tremendously thick 
wall, changed their plan; hired that cellar, which was directly 
under the House of Lords ; put six-and-thirty barrels of gun¬ 
powder in it, and covered it over with fagots and coals. Then 
they all dispersed again till September, when the following new 
conspirators were admitted: Sir Edward Baynham of Glouces¬ 
tershire, Sir Everard Digby of Rutlandshire, Ambrose Rookwood 
of Suffolk, Francis Tresham of Northamptonshire. Most of 
these were rich, and were to assist the plot, some with money, 
and some with horses, on which the conspirators were to ride 
through the country, and rouse the Catholics, after the Parlia¬ 
ment should be blown into air. 

Parliament being again prorogued from the third of October to 
the fifth of November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest 
their design should have been found out, Thomas Winter said 
he would go up into the House of Lords on the day of the pro¬ 
rogation and see how matters looked. Nothing could be better. 
The unconscious commissioners were walking about and talking 
to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels of gunpow¬ 
der. He came back and told the rest so, and they went on 
with their preparations. They hired a ship, and kept it ready 
in the Thames, in which Fawkes was to sail for Flanders after 
firing with a slow-match the train that was to explode the pow¬ 
der. A number of Catholic gentlemen not in the secret were 
invited, on pretence of a hunting-party, to meet Sir Everard 
Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be ready 
to act together. And now all was ready. 

But now the great wickedness and danger, which had been 
all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. 
As the fifth of November drew near, most of the conspirators, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


311 


remembering that they had friends and relations who would he 
in the House of Lords that day, felt some natural relenting, and 
a wish to warn them to keep away. They were not much com¬ 
forted hy Catesby’s declaring that, in such a cause, he would 
blow up his own son. Lord Mounteagle, Tresham’s brother-in- 
law, was certain to be in the house; and when Tresham found 
that he could not prevail upon the rest to devise any means of 
sparing their friends, he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord, 
and left it at his lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away 
from the opening of Parliament, “ since God and man had con¬ 
curred to punish the wickedness of the times.’ 7 It contained the 
words, “ That the Parliament should receive a terrible blow, 
and yet should not see who hurt them.” And it added, “ The 
danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter.” 

The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by a 
direct miracle from heaven, found out what this letter meant. 
The truth is that they were not long (as few men would be) in 
finding out for themselves ; and it was decided to let the con¬ 
spirators alone until the very day before the opening of Parlia¬ 
ment. That the conspirators had their fears is certain; for 
Tresham himself said, before them all, that they were every 
one dead men ; and although even he did not take flight, there 
is reason to suppose that he had warned other persons besides 
Lord Mounteagle. However, they were all firm ; and Fawkes, 
who was a man of iron, went down every day and night to 
keep watch in the cellar as usual. He was there about two 
in the afternoon of the fourth, when the lord chamberlain and 
Lord Mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. “ Who 
are you, friend ? ” said they. “ Why,” said Fawkes, “ I am 
Mr. Percy’s servant, and am looking after his store of fuel 
here.” “ Your master has laid in a pretty good store,” they 
returned, and shut the door and went away. Fawkes, upon 
this, posted off to the other conspirators to tell them all was 
quiet, and went back and shut himself up in the dark black 
cellar again, where he heard the bell go twelve o’clock, and 
usher in the fifth of November. About two hours afterwards, 
he slowly opened the door, and came out to look about him, in 
his old prowling way. He was instantly seized and bound by a 
party of soldiers under Sir Thomas Knevett. He had a watch 
upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slow-matches ; 
and there was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind 


312 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the door. He had his hoots and spurs on, — to ride to the 
ship, I suppose ; and it was well for the soldiers that they took 
him so suddenly. If they had left him hut a moment’s time to 
light a match, he certainly would have tossed it in among the 
powder, and blown up himself and them. 

They took him to the king’s bedchamber first of all; and 
there the king, causing him to be held very tight, and keeping 
a good way off, asked him how he could have the heart to 
intend to destroy so many innocent people. “ Because,” said 
Guy Fawkes, “ desperate diseases need desperate remedies.” 
To a little Scotch favourite, with a face like a terrier, who asked 
him, with no particular wisdom, why he had collected so much 
gunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to blow Scotch¬ 
men back to Scotland, and it would take a deal of powder to do 
that. Next day he was carried to the Tower, but would make 
no confession. Even after being horribly tortured, he confessed 
nothing that the government did not already know ; though he 
must have been in a fearful state, as his signature, still pre¬ 
served, in contrast with his natural handwriting before he was 
put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully shows. Bates, a 
very different man, soon said the Jesuits had had to do with 
the plot, and probably, under the torture, would as readily have 
said anything. Tresham, taken and put in the Tower too, 
made confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness that 
was heavy upon him. Bookwood, who had stationed relays of 
his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did not mount to 
escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the plot 
was all over London. On the road, he came up with the two 
Wrights, Catesby, and Percy ; and they all galloped together 
into Northamptonshire ; thence to Dunchurch, where they found 
the proposed party assembled. Finding, however, that there 
had been a plot, and that it had been discovered, the party dis¬ 
appeared in the course of the night, and left them alone with 
Sir Everard Digby. Away they all rode again, through War¬ 
wickshire and Worcestershire, to a house called Holbeach, on 
the borders of Staffordshire. They tried to raise the Catholics 
on their way, but were indignantly driven off by them. All this 
time they were hotly pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and 
a fast increasing concourse of riders. At last, resolving to 
defend themselves at Holbeach, they shut themselves up in the 
house, and put some wet powder before the fire to dry. But it 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


313 


blew up, and Catesby was singed and blackened, and almost 
killed, and some of the others were sadly hurt. Still, knowing 
that they must die, they resolved to die there, and, with only 
their swords in their hands, appeared at the windows to be shot 
at by the sheriff and his assistants. Catesby said to Thomas 
Winter, after Thomas had been hit in the right arm, which 
dropped powerless by his side, “ Stand by me, Tom, and we 
will die together ! ” which they did, being shot through the 
body by two bullets from one gun. John Wright and Chris¬ 
topher Wright and Percy were also shot. Rook wood and Digby 
were taken; the former with a broken arm and a wound in his 
body too. 

It was the fifteenth of January, before the trial of Guy Fawkes, 
and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, came on. 
They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered, 
— some in St. Paul’s Churchyard, on the top of Ludgate Hill; 
some before the Parliament House. A Jesuit priest, named 
Henry Garnet, to whom the dreadful design was said to have 
been communicated, was taken and tried; and two of his ser¬ 
vants, as well as a poor priest who was taken with him, were 
tortured without mercy. He himself was not tortured, but was 
surrounded in the Tower by tamperers and traitors, and so was 
made unfairly to convict himself out of his own mouth. He 
said, upon his trial, that he had done all he could to prevent 
the deed, and that he could not make public what had been 
told him in confession, — though I am afraid he knew of the 
plot in other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after a 
manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him. 
Some rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do 
with the project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star 
Chamber; the Catholics in general, who had recoiled with 
horror from the idea of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly 
put under more severe laws than before; and this was the end 
of the Gunpowder Plot. 

PART THE SECOND 

His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown the 
House of Commons into the air himself ; for his dread and 
jealousy of it knew no bounds all through his reign. When he 
was hard pressed for money, he was obliged to order it to meet, 


314 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


as he could get no money without it; and when it asked him 
first to abolish some of the monopolies in necessaries of life, 
which were a great grievance to the people, and to redress other 
public wrongs, he flew into a rage and got rid of it again. At 
one time he wanted it to consent to the union of England 
with Scotland, and quarrelled about that. At another time it 
wanted him to put down a most infamous Church abuse, called 
the High Commission Court; and he quarrelled with it about 
that. At another time it entreated him not to he quite so fond 
of his archbishops and bishops, who made speeches in his praise 
too awful to he related, hut to have some little consideration for 
the poor Puritan clergy, who were persecuted for preaching 
in their own way, and not according to the archbishops and 
bishops ; and they quarrelled about that. In short, what with 
hating the House of Commons, and pretending not to hate it; 
and what with now sending some of its members who opposed 
him to Newgate or to the Tower, and now telling the rest that 
they must not presume to make speeches about the public affairs 
which could not possibly concern them ; and what with cajol¬ 
ing and bullying, and frightening and being frightened, — the 
House of Commons was the plague of his Sowship’s existence. 
It was pretty firm, however, in maintaining its rights, and 
insisting that the Parliament should make the laws, and not 
the king by his own single proclamation (which he tried hard 
to do) ; and his Sowship was so often distressed for money, 
in consequence, that he sold every sort of title and public office 
as if they were merchandise, and even invented a new dignity 
called a baronetcy, which anybody could buy for a thousand 
pounds. These disputes with his parliaments, and his hunting, 
and his drinking, and his lying in bed, — for he was a great 
sluggard, — occupied his Sowship pretty well. The rest of 
his time he chiefly passed in hugging and slobbering his 
favourites. The first of these was Sir Philip Herbert, who 
had no knowledge whatever, except of dogs and horses and 
hunting, hut whom he soon made Earl of Montgomery. The 
next, and a much more famous one, was Pobert Carr, or Ker 
(for it is not certain which was his right name), who came from 
the Border country, and whom he soon made Viscount Roches¬ 
ter, and afterward Earl of Somerset. The way in which his 
Sowship doted on this handsome young man is even more odious 
to think of than the way in which the great men of England 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


315 


condescended to bow down before him. The favourite’s great 
friend was a certain Sir Thomas Overbury, who wrote his love- 
letters for him, and assisted him in the duties of his many high 
places, which his own ignorance prevented him from dischar¬ 
ging. But this same Sir Thomas having just manhood enough 
to dissuade the favourite from a wicked marriage with the 
beautiful Countess of Essex, who was to get a divorce from her 
husband for the purpose, the said countess, in her rage, got Sir 
Thomas put into the Tower, and there poisoned him. Then the 
favourite and this bad woman were publicly married by the 
king’s pet bishop, with as much to-do and rejoicing as if he had 
been the best man, and she the best woman, upon the face of 
the earth. 

But after a longer sunshine than might have been expected, 

— of seven years or so, that is to say, — another handsome 
young man started up, and eclipsed the Earl of Somerset. This 
was George Yilliers, the youngest son of a Leicestershire gentle¬ 
man ; who came to court with all the Paris fashions on him, 
and could dance as well as the best mountebank that ever was 
seen. He soon danced himself into the good graces of his Sow- 
ship, and danced the other favourite out of favour. Then it 
was all at once discovered that the Earl and Countess of Somer¬ 
set had not deserved all those great promotions and mighty 
rejoicings; and they were separately tried for the murder of 
Sir Thomas Overbury, and for other crimes. But the king was 
so afraid of his late favourite’s publicly telling some disgraceful 
things he knew of him, — which he darkly threatened to do, 

— that he was even examined with two men standing, one on 
either side of him, each with a cloak in his hand, ready to 
throw it over his head, and stop his mouth, if he should break 
out with what he had it in his power to tell. So a very lame 
affair was purposely made of the trial; and his punishment was 
an allowance of four thousand pounds a year in retirement, 
while the countess was pardoned, and allowed to pass into 
retirement, too. They hated one another by this time, and 
lived to revile and torment each other some years. 

While these events were in progress, and while his Sowship 
was making such an exhibition of himself, from day to day and 
from year to year, as is not often seen in any sty, three remark¬ 
able deaths took place in England. The first was that of the 
minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was past sixty, 


316 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and had never been strong, being deformed from his birth. He 
said at last that be bad no wish to live ; and no minister need 
have bad, with bis experience of the meanness and wickedness 
of those disgraceful times. The second was that of the Lady 
Arabella Stuart, who alarmed bis Sowship mightily by privately 
marrying William Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, who was 
a descendant of King Henry the Seventh, and who, his Sowship 
thought, might consequently increase and strengthen any claim 
she might one day set up to the throne. She was separated 
from her husband (who was put in the Tower) and thrust into 
a boat to he confined at Durham. She escaped in a man’s dress 
to get away in a French ship from Grayesend to France, but 
unhappily missed her husband, who had escaped, too, and was 
soon taken. She went raving mad in the miserable Tower, and 
died there after four years. The last, and the most important, 
of these three deaths, was that of Prince Henry, the heir to the 
throne, in the nineteenth year of his age. He was a promising 
young prince, and greatly liked, — a quiet, well-conducted youth, 
of whom two very good things are known: first, that his father 
was jealous of him; secondly, that he was the friend of Sir 
Walter Baleigh, languishing through all those years in the 
Tower, and often said that no man but his father would keep 
such a bird in such a cage. On the occasion of the preparations 
for the marriage of his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, with a 
foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage it turned out), he 
came from Pichmond, where he had been very ill, to greet 
his new brother-in-law, at the palace at Whitehall. There he 
played a great game at tennis, in his shirt, though it was very 
cold weather, and was seized with an alarming illness, and died 
within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this young prince Sir 
Walter Baleigh wrote, in his prison in the Tower, the begin¬ 
ning of a history of the world ; a wonderful instance how little 
his Sowship could do to confine a great man’s mind, however 
long he might imprison his body. 

And this mention of Sir Walter Baleigh, who had many 
faults, but who never showed so many merits as in trouble and 
adversity, may bring me at once to the end of lii« sad story. 
After an imprisonment in the Tower of twelve long years, he 
proposed to resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go to 
South America in search of gold. His Sowship, divided be¬ 
tween his wish to be on good terms with the Spaniards, through 



GATE HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 










































































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


317 


whose territory Sir Walter must pass (he had long had an idea 
of marrying Prince Henry to a Spanish princess), and his 
avaricious eagerness to get hold of the gold, did not know 
what to do. But in the end he set Sir Walter free, taking 
securities for his return ; and Sir Walter fitted out an expedition 
at his own cost, and on the twenty-eighth of March, 1617, sailed 
away in command of one of its ships, which he ominously called 
the Destiny. The expedition failed : the common men, not find¬ 
ing the gold they had expected, mutinied ; a quarrel broke out 
between Sir Walter and the Spaniards, who hated him for old 
successes of his against them ; and he took and burnt a little 
town called St. Thomas. For this he was denounced to his 
Sowship by the Spanish ambassador as a pirate ; and returning 
almost broken-hearted, with his hopes and fortunes shattered, 
his company of friends dispersed, and his brave son (who had 
been one of them) killed, he was taken, — through the treachery 
of Sir Lewis Stukely, his near relation, a scoundrel and a vice- 
admiral, — and was once again immured in his prison home of 
so many years. 

His Sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting any 
gold, Sir Walter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as 
many lies and evasions, as the judges and law-officers and every 
other authority in church and state habitually practised under 
such a king. After a great deal of prevarication on all parts but 
his own, it was declared that he must die under his former sen¬ 
tence, now fifteen years old. So, on the twenty-eighth of Octo¬ 
ber, 1618, he was shut up in the Gate House at Westminster to 
pass his last night on earth; and there he took leave of his good 
and faithful lady, who was worthy to have lived in better days. 
At eight o’clock next morning, after a cheerful breakfast, and 
a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was taken to Old Palace 
Yard, in Westminster, where the scaffold was set up, and where 
so many people of high degree were assembled to see him die 
that it was a matter of some difficulty to get him through the 
crowd. He behaved most nobly; but if anything lay heavy 
on his mind, it was that Earl of Essex, whose head he had seen 
roll off; and he solemnly said that he had had no hand in bring¬ 
ing him to the block, and that he had shed tears for him when 
he died. As the morning was very cold, the sheriff said, would 
he come down to a fire for a little space, and warm himself ? 
But Sir Walter thanked him, and said No ; he would rather it 


318 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

were done at once 5 for lie was ill of fever and ague, and in 
another quarter of an hour his shaking fit would come upon him 
if he were still alive, and his enemies might then suppose that 
he trembled for fear. With that he kneeled, and made a very 
beautiful and Christian prayer. Before he laid his head upon 
the block he felt the edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon 
his face, that it was a sharp medicine, hut would cure the worst 
disease. When he was bent down, ready for death, he said to 
the executioner, finding that he hesitated, u What dost thou 
fear ? Strike, man ! ” So the axe came down, and struck his 
head off, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 

The new favourite got on fast. He was made a viscount, he 
was made Duke of Buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was 
made master of the horse, he was made lord high admiral; and 
the chief commander of the gallant English forces that had dis¬ 
persed the Spanish Armada was displaced to make room for 
him. He had the whole kingdom at his disposal; and his 
mother sold all the profits and honours of the state, as if she 
had kept a shop. He blazed all over with diamonds and other 
precious stones, from his hatband and his earrings to his shoes. 
Yet he was an ignorant, presumptuous, swaggering compound of 
knave and fool, with nothing but his beauty and his dancing to 
recommend him. This is the gentleman who called himself his 
Majesty’s dog and slave, and called his Majesty, your Sowship. 
His Sowship called him Steenie; it is supposed because that 
was a nickname for Stephen, and because St. Stephen was gen¬ 
erally represented in pictures as a handsome saint. 

His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits’-ends by his 
trimming between the general dislike of the Catholic religion 
at home, and his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad as his 
only means of getting a rich princess for his son’s wife, a part 
of whose fortune he might cram into his greasy pockets. 
Prince Charles — or as his Sowship called him, Baby Charles — 
being now Prince of Wales, the old project of a marriage with 
the Spanish king’s daughter had been revived for him ; and as 
she could not marry a Protestant without leave from the Pope, 
his Sowship himself secretly and meanly wrote to his Infalli¬ 
bility, asking for it. The negotiation for this Spanish marriage 
takes up a larger space in great books than you can imagine; 
but the upshot of it all is that, when it had been held off by 
the Spanish court for a long time, Baby Charles and Steenie set 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


310 


off in disguise as Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. John Smith, to 
see the Spanish princess; that Baby Charles pretended to be 
desperately in love with her, and jumped off walls to look at 
her, and made a considerable fool of himself in a good many 
ways; that she was called Princess of Wales, and that the 
whole Spanish court believed Baby Charles to be all but dying 
for her sake, as he expressly told them he was; that Baby 
Charles and Steenie came back to England, and were received 
with as much rapture as if they had been a blessing to it; that 
Baby Charles had actually fallen in love with Henrietta Maria, 
the French king’s sister, whom he had seen in Paris ; that he 
thought it a wonderfully fine and princely thing to have 
deceived the Spaniards all through; and that he openly said, 
with a chuckle, as soon as he was safe and sound at home 
again, that the Spaniards were great fools to have believed 
him. 

Like most dishonest men, the prince and the favourite com¬ 
plained that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest. 
They made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the 
Spaniards, in this business of the Spanish match, that the 
English nation became eager for a war with them. Although 
the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowship in a 
warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the begin¬ 
ning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were publicly 
declared to be at an end. The Spanish ambassador in London 
— probably with the help of the fallen favourite, the Earl of 
Somerset — being unable to obtain speech with his Sowship, 
slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner 
in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and 
his creatures. The first effect of this letter was that his Sow¬ 
ship began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from 
Steenie, and went down to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of non¬ 
sense. The end of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog and 
slave, and said he was quite satisfied. 

He had given the prince and the favourite almost unlimited 
power to settle anything with the Pope as to the Spanish mar¬ 
riage ; and he now, with a view to the French one, signed a 
treaty that all Koman Catholics in England should exercise 
their religion freely, and should never be required to take any 
oath contrary thereto. In return for this, and for other conces¬ 
sions much less to be defended, Henrietta Maria was to become 


320 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the prince’s wife, and was to bring him a fortune of eight 
hundred thousand crowns. 

His Sowship’s eyes were getting red with eagerly looking for 
the money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon him; 
and, after a fortnight’s illness, on Sunday, the twenty-seventh of 
March, 1625, he died. He had reigned twenty-two years, and 
was fifty-nine years old. I know of nothing more abominable 
in history than the adulation that was lavished on this king, and 
the vice and corruption that such a barefaced habit of lying pro¬ 
duced in his court. It is much to be doubted whether one man 
of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place near 
James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wise philosopher, 
as the first judge in the kingdom in this reign, became a public 
spectacle of dishonesty and corruption ; and in his base flattery of 
his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave, 
disgraced himself even more. But a creature like his Sowship 
set upon a throne is like a plague, and everybody receives infec¬ 
tion from him. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


321 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST 

PART THE FIRST 

Baby Charles became King Charles the First in the twenty- 
fifth year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable 
in his private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing ; 
but like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of 
the rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. If 
his word could have been relied upon, his history might have 
had a different end. 

His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, Bucking¬ 
ham, to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his queen ; 
upon which occasion, Buckingham, with his usual audacity, made 
love to the young queen of Austria, and was very indignant 
indeed with Cardinal Richelieu, the French minister, for thwart¬ 
ing his intentions. The English people were very well disposed 
to like their new queen, and to receive her with great favour 
when she came among them as a stranger. But she held the 
Protestant religion in great dislike, and brought over a crowd of 
unpleasant priests, who made her do some very ridiculous things, 
and forced themselves upon the public notice in many disagree¬ 
able ways. Hence the people soon came to dislike her, and 
she soon came to dislike them ; and she did so much all through 
this reign in setting the king, who was dotingly fond of her, 
against his subjects, that it would have been better for him if 
she had never been born. 

Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First, of 
his own determination to be a high and mighty king, not to be 
called to account by anybody, and urged on by his queen be¬ 
sides, deliberately set himself to put his Parliament down and 
to put himself up. You are also to understand that, even in 
pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any 
king), he never took a straight course, but always a crooked 
one. 

He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House 


322 


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of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of 
that war, now that they began to think a little more about the 
story of the Spanish match. But the king rushed into it hotly, 
raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses, and en¬ 
countered a miserable failure at Cadiz, in the very first year of 
his reign. An expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope 
of plunder; but as it was not successful, it was necessary to get 
a grant of money from the Parliament; and when they met in 
no very complying humour, the king told them “ to make haste 
to let him have it, or it would be the worse for themselves.” 
Not put in a more complying humour by this, they impeached 
the king’s favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, as the cause — 
which he undoubtedly was — of many great public grievances 
and wrongs. The king, to save him, dissolved the Parliament 
without getting the money he wanted; and, when the lords 
implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, 
“ No, not one minute.” He then began to raise money for him¬ 
self by the following means among others. 

He levied certain duties, called tonnage and poundage, which 
had not been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be 
levied by no other power; he called upon the seaport towns to 
furnish, and to pay all the cost for three months of a fleet of 
armed ships; and he required the people to unite in lending 
him large sums of money, the repayment of which was very 
doubtful. If the poor people refused, they were pressed as sol¬ 
diers or sailors ; if the gentry refused, they were sent to prison. 
Pive gentlemen, named Sir Thomas Darnel, John Corbet, 
Walter Earl, John Heveningham, and Everard Hampden, for 
refusing, were taken up by a warrant of the king’s privy coun¬ 
cil, and were sent to prison without any cause but the king’s 
pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then the ques¬ 
tion came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a violation 
of Magna Charta, and an encroachment by the king on the 
highest rights of the English people. His lawyers contended, 
No; because to encroach upon the rights of the English people 
would be to do wrong, and the king could do no wrong. The 
accommodating judges decided in favour of this wicked non¬ 
sense ; and here was a fatal division between the king and the 
people. 

For all this it became necessary to call another Parliament. 
The people, sensible of the dangers in which their liberties 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


323 


were, cliose for it those who were best known for their deter¬ 
mined opposition to the king ; but still the king, quite blinded 
by his determination to carry everything before him, addressed 
them, when they met, in a contemptuous manner, and just told 
them in so many words that he had only called them together 
because he wanted money. The Parliament, strong enough and 
resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared 
little for what he said, and laid before him one of the great 
documents of history, which is called the Petition of Right, re¬ 
quiring that the freemen of England should no longer be called 
upon to lend the king money, and should no longer he pressed 
or imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, that the freemen 
of England should no longer he seized by the king’s special 
mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties, 
and the laws of their country. At first, the king returned an 
answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether ; 
hut the House of Commons then showing their determination 
to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the king, in 
alarm, returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was 
required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his 
word and honour on these points, over and over again, hut at 
this very time, he did the mean and dissembling act of pub¬ 
lishing his first answer and not his second, merely that the people 
might suppose that the Parliament had not got the better of 
him. 

That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded 
vanity, had, by this time, involved the country in war with 
France, as well as with Spain. For such miserable causes and 
such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made. But he was 
destined to do little more mischief in this world. One morning 
as he was going out of his house to his carriage, he turned to speak 
to a certain Colonel Fryer who was with him ; and he was vio¬ 
lently stabbed with a knife, which the murderer left sticking in 
his heart. This happened in his hall. He had angry words up 
stairs, just before, with some French gentlemen, who were 
immediately suspected by his servants, and had a close escape 
from being set upon and killed. In the midst of the noise, the 
real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen and might easily 
have got away, drew his sword, and cried out, “I am the 
man ! ” His name was John Felton, a Protestant, and a retired 
officer in the army. He said he had had no personal ill-will to 


324 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the duke, but had killed him as a curse to the country. He had 
aimed his blow well; for Buckingham had only had time to 
cry out, “ Villain ! ” and then he drew out the knife, fell 
against a table, and died. 

The council made a mighty business of examining John 
Belton about this murder, though it was a plain case enough, 
one would think. He had come seventy miles to do it, he told 
them, and he did it for the reason he had declared : if they put 
him upon the rack, as that noble Marquis of Dorset, whom he 
saw before him, had the goodness to threaten, he gave that 
marquis warning that he would accuse him as his accomplice. 
The king was unpleasantly anxious to have him racked, never¬ 
theless ; but as the judges now found out that torture was 
contrary to the law of England, — it is a pity they did not make 
the discovery a little sooner, — John Felton was simply executed 
for the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was, 
and not in the least to be defended, though he had freed Eng¬ 
land from one of the most profligate, contemptible, and base 
court favourites to whom it has ever yielded. 

A very different man now arose. This was Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, a Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament 
for a long time, and who had favoured arbitrary and haughty 
principles, but who had gone over to the people’s side on 
receiving offence from Buckingham. The king, much wanting 
such a man, — for besides being naturally favourable to the 
king’s cause, he had great abilities, — made him first a baron, 
and then a viscount, and gave him high employment, and won 
him most completely. 

A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was not to 
be won. On the twentieth of January, 1629, Sir John Eliot, 
a great man who had been active in the Petition of Eight. 

_ 0 7 

brought forward other strong resolutions against the king’s 
chief instruments, and called upon the speaker to put them to 
the vote. To this the speaker answered, “ He was commanded 
otherwise by the king,” and got up to leave the chair, which, 
according to the rules of the House of Commons, would have 
obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more, when two 
members, named Mr. Hollis and Mr. Valentine, held him down. 
A scene of great confusion arose among the members; and 
while many swords were drawn and flashing about, the king, 
who was kept informed of all that was going on, told the cap. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


325 


tain of liis guard to go down to the House, and force the doors. 
The resolutions were by that time, however, voted, and the 
House adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two members who 
had held the speaker down were quickly summoned before the 
council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to answer 
out of Parliament for anything they had said in it, they were 
committed to the Tower. The king then went down and dis¬ 
solved the Parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention of 
these gentlemen as “ Vipers,” which did not do him much good 
that ever I have heard of. 

As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were 
sorry for what they had done, the king, always remarkably 
unforgiving, never overlooked their offence. When they de¬ 
manded to be brought up before the Court of King’s Bench, he 
even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about from 
prison to prison, so that the writs issued for that purpose should 
not legally find them. At last they came before the court, and 
were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be imprisoned during the 
king’s pleasure. When Sir John Eliot’s health had quite given 
away, and he so longed for change of air and scene as to petition 
for his release, the king sent back the answer (worthy of his 
Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble enough. 
When he sent another petition by his young son, in which he 
pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was 
restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the king still 
disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and his children 
petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, 
there to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, the king 
returned for answer, “ Let Sir John Eliot’s body be buried in 
the church of that parish where he died.” All this was like a 
very little king indeed, I think. 

And now for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design 
of setting himself up and putting the people down, the king 
called no Parliament, but ruled without one. If twelve thou¬ 
sand volumes were written in his praise (as a good many have 
been), it would still remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that 
for twelve years King Charles the First reigned in England un¬ 
lawfully and despotically, seized upon his subjects’ goods and 
money at his pleasure, and punished according to his unbridled 
will all who ventured to oppose him. It is a fashion with some 
people to think that this king’s career was cut short; but I 
must say myself that I think he ran a pretty long one. 


326 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the king’s 
right-hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the 
people’s liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of large learn¬ 
ing but small sense, —for the two things sometimes go together 
in very different quantities, — though a Protestant, held opin¬ 
ions so near those of the Catholics that the Pope wanted to 
make a cardinal of him, if he would have accepted that favour. 
He looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, images, etc., as 
amazingly important in religious ceremonies; and he brought in 
an immensity of bowing and candle-snuffing. He also regarded 
archbishops and bishops as a sort of miraculous persons, and was 
inveterate in the last degree against any who thought otherwise. 
Accordingly, he offered up thanks to Heaven, and was in a state 
of much pious pleasure, when a Scotch clergyman named Leighton 
was pilloried, whipped, branded in the cheek, and had one of his 
ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit, for calling bishops trum¬ 
pery and the inventions of men. He originated on a Sunday 
morning the prosecution of William Pryne, a barrister who was 
of similar opinions, and who was fined a thousand pounds, who 
was pilloried, who had his ears cut off on two occasions, — one 
ear at a time, — and who was imprisoned for life. He highly 
approved of the punishment of Dr. Bastwick, a physician, who 
was also fined a thousand pounds, and who afterwards had his 
ears cut off, and was imprisoned for life. These were gentle 
methods of persuasion, some will tell you ; I think they were 
rather calculated to be alarming to the people. 

In the money part of the putting down of the people’s liber¬ 
ties, the king was equally gentle, as some will tell you; as I 
think, equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and 
poundage, and increased them as he thought fit. He granted 
monopolies to companies of merchants on their paying him for 
them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had, for years 
and years, been made on the subject of monopolies. He fined 
the people for disobeying proclamations issued by his Sowship 
in direct violation of law. He revived the detested forest-laws, 
and took private property to himself as his forest right. Above 
all, he determined to have what was called ship-money; that is 
to say, money for the support of the fleet, not only from the 
seaports, hut from all the counties of England, — having found 
out that, in some ancient time or other, all the counties paid it. 
The grievance of this ship-money being somewhat too strong, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


327 


John Chambers, a citizen of London, refused to pay his part of 
it. For this the lord mayor ordered John Chambers to prison, 
and for that John Chambers brought a suit against the lord 
mayor. Lord Say also behaved like a real nobleman, and de¬ 
clared he would not pay. But the sturdiest and best opponent 
of the ship-money was John Hampden, a gentleman of Buck¬ 
inghamshire, who had sat among the u vipers ” in the House of 
Commons, when there was such a thing, and who had been the 
bosom friend of Sir John Eliot. This case was tried before 
the twelve judges in the Court of Exchequer, and again the 
king’s lawyers said it was impossible that ship-money could be 
wrong, because the king could do no wrong, however hard he 
tried, — and he really did try very hard during these twelve 
years. Seven of the judges said that was quite true, and Mr. 
Hampden was bound to pay ; five of the judges said that was 
quite false, and Mr. Hampden was not bound to pay. So the 
king triumphed (as he thought), by making Hampden the most 
popular man in England, where matters were getting to that 
height now that many honest Englishmen could not endure 
their country, and sailed away across the seas to found a colony 
in Massachusetts Bay in America. It is said that Hampden 
himself, and his relation, Oliver Cromwell, were going with a 
company of such voyagers, and were actually on board ship, 
when they were stopped by a proclamation prohibiting sea-cap¬ 
tains to carry out such passengers without the royal licence. 
But, oh ! it would have been well for the king if he had let 
them go ! 

This was the state of England. If Laud had been a madman 
just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief than he 
did in Scotland. In his endeavours (in which he was seconded 
by the king, then in person in that part of his dominions) to 
force his own ideas of bishops, and his own religious forms and 
ceremonies, upon the Scotch, he roused that nation to a perfect 
frenzy. They formed a solemn league, which they called The 
Covenant, for the preservation of their own religious forms; 
they rose in arms throughout the whole country; they sum¬ 
moned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by beat 
of drum ; they sang psalms, in which they compared their enemies 
to all the evil spirits that ever were heard of ; and they solemnly 
vowed to smite them with the sword. At first the king tried 
force, then treaty, then a Scottish Parliament which did not 


328 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


answer at all. Then he tried the Earl of Strafford, formerly 
Sir Thomas Wentworth; who, as Lord Wentworth, had been 
governing Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a very high 
hand there, though to the benefit and prosperity of that 
country. 

Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people 
by force of arms. Other lords who were taken into council re¬ 
commended that a Parliament should at last he called ; to which 
the king unwillingly consented. So, on the thirteenth of April, 
1640, that then strange sight, a Parliament, was seen at West¬ 
minster. It is called the Short Parliament; for it lasted a very 
little while. While the members were all looking at one 
another, doubtful who would dare to speak, Mr. Pym arose and 
set forth all that the king had done unlawfully during the past 
twelve years, and what was the position to which England was 
reduced. This great example set, other members took courage, 
and spoke the truth freely, though with great patience and 
moderation. The king, a little frightened, sent to say, that, if 
they would grant him a certain sum on certain terms, no more 
ship-money should be raised. They debated the matter for two 
days; and then, as they would not give him all he asked with¬ 
out promise or inquiry, he dissolved them. 

But they knew very well that he must have a Parliament 
now; and he began to make that discovery too, though rather 
late in the day. Wherefore, on the twenty-fourth of September, 
being then at York, with an army collected against the Scottish 
people, but his own men sullen and discontented like the rest 
of the nation, the king told the great council of the lords, whom 
he had called to meet him there, that he would summon another 
Parliament to assemble on the third of November. The soldiers 
of the Covenant had now forced their way into England, and 
had taken possession of the northern counties, where the coals 
are got. As it would never do to be without coals, and as the 
king’s troops could make no head against the Covenanters, so 
full of gloomy zeal, a truce was made, and a treaty with Scot¬ 
land was taken into consideration. Meanwhile the northern 
counties paid the Covenanters to leave the coals alone, and keep 
quiet. 

We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We have 
next to see what memorable things were done by the long 
one. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


329 


PART THE SECOND 

The Long Parliament assembled on the third of November, 
1641. That day week the Earl of Strafford arrived from York, 
very sensible that the spirited and determined men who formed 
that Parliament were no friends towards him, who had not only 
deserted the cause of the people, hut who had on all occasions 
opposed himself to their liberties. The king told him, for his 
comfort, that the Parliament “ should not hurt one hair of his 
head.” But on the very next day, Mr. Pym, in the House of 
Commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the Earl of 
Strafford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custody, 
and fell from his proud height. 

It was the twenty-second of March before he was brought to 
trial at Westminster Hall; where, although he was very ill and 
suffered great pain, he defended himself with such ability and 
majesty, that it was doubtful whether he would not get the best 
of it. But on the thirteenth day of the trial, Pym produced in 
the House of Commons a copy of some notes of a council, found 
by young Sir Harry Vane in a red velvet cabinet belonging to 
his father (Secretary Vane, who sat at the council-table with 
the earl), in which Strafford had distinctly told the king that he 
was free from all rules and obligations of government, and 
might do with his people whatever he liked ; and in which he 
had added, “ You have an army in Ireland that you may employ 
to reduce this kingdom to obedience.” It was not clear whether 
by the words “ this kingdom,” he had really meant England or 
Scotland ; but the Parliament contended that he meant England, 
and this was treason. At the same sitting of the House of 
Commons, it was resolved to bring in a hill of attainder declar¬ 
ing the treason to have been committed, in preference to pro¬ 
ceeding with the trial by impeachment, which would have 
required the treason to be proved. 

So a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the 
House of Commons by a large majority, and was sent up to 
the House of Lords. While it was still uncertain whether the 
House of Lords would pass it and the king consent to it, Pym 
disclosed to the House of Commons that the king and queen 
had both been plotting with the officers of the army to bring 
up the soldiers and control the Parliament, and also to intro- 


330 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


duce two hundred soldiers into the Tower of London to effect 
the earl’s escape. The plotting with the army was revealed by 
one George Goring, the son of a lord of that name, — a had 
fellow, who was one of the original plotters, and turned traitor. 
The king had actually given his warrant for the admission of 
the two hundred men into the Tower, and they would have got 
in too, but for the refusal of the governor — a sturdy Scotch¬ 
man of the name of Balfour — to admit them. These matters 
being made public, great numbers of people began to riot out¬ 
side the Houses of Parliament, and to cry out for the execution 
of the Earl of Strafford, as one of the king’s chief instruments 
against them. The bill passed the House of Lords while the 
people were in this state of agitation, and was laid before the 
king for his assent, together with another bill declaring that the 
Parliament then assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned 
without their own consent. The king — not unwilling to save 
a faithful servant, though he had no great attachment for him 
— was in some doubt what to do; but he gave his consent to 
both bills, although he in his heart believed that the bill against 
the Earl of Strafford was unlawful and unjust. The earl had 
written to him, telling him that he was willing to die for his 
sake. But he had not expected that his royal master would take 
him at his word quite so readily; for when he heard his doom, 
he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, “ Put not your trust 
in princes ! ” 

The king, who never could be straightforward and plain 
through one single day, or through one single sheet of paper, 
wrote a letter to the Lords, and sent it by the young Prince of 
Wales, entreating them to prevail with the Commons that “ that 
unfortunate man should fulfil the natural course of his life in a 
close imprisonment.” In a postscript to the very same letter, 
he added, “ If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till 
Saturday.” If there had been any doubt of his fate, this weak¬ 
ness and meanness would have settled it. The very next day, 
which was the twelfth of May, he was brought out to be be¬ 
headed on Tower Hill. 

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people’s 
ears cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the 
Tower too ; and when the earl went by his window to his 
death, he was there, at his request, to give him his blessing. 
They had been great friends in the king’s cause ; and the earl 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


331 


had written to him in the days of their power, that he thought 
it would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hampden publicly 
whipped for refusing to pay the ship-money. However, those 
high and mighty doings were over now, and the earl went his 
way to death with dignity and heroism. The governor wished 
him to get into a coach at the Tower gate, for fear the people 
should tear him to pieces ; but he said it was all one to him 
whether he died by the axe or by the people’s hands. So he 
walked,/with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes 
pulled off his hat to them as he passed along. They were pro¬ 
foundly quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold from some 
notes he had prepared (the paper was found lying there after 
his head was struck off) ; and one blow of the axe killed him, 
in the forty-ninth year of his age. 

This bold and daring act the Parliament accompanied by 
other famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in the 
king’s having so grossly and so long abused his power. The 
name of Delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and other offi¬ 
cers who had been concerned in raising the ship-money, or any 
oUier money, from the people, in an unlawful manner ; the 
Hampden judgment was reversed ; the judges who had decided 
against Hampden were called upon to give large securities that 
they would take such consequences as Parliament might impose 
upon them; and one was arrested as he sat in high court, and 
carried off to prison. Laud was impeached ; the unfortunate 
victims whose ears had been cropped and whose noses had been 
slit were brought out of prison in triumph ; and a bill was 
passed declaring that a Parliament should be called every third 
year, and that, if the king and the king’s officers did not call it, 
the people should assemble of themselves and summon it, as of 
their own right and power. Great illuminations and rejoicings 
took place over all these things, and the country was wildly 
excited. That the Parliament took advantage of this excite¬ 
ment, and stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt; 
but you are always to remember those twelve long years, during 
which the king had tried so hard whether he really could do 
any wrong or not. 

All this time there was a great religious outcry against the 
right of the bishops to sit in Parliament; to which the Scot¬ 
tish people particularly objected. The English were divided 
on this subject; and partly on this account, and partly because 


332 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


they had had foolish expectations that the Parliament would 
he able to take off nearly all the taxes, numbers of them some¬ 
times wavered, and inclined towards the king. 

I believe myself, that if at this, or almost any other period 
of his life, the king could have been trusted by any man not 
out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his 
throne. But on the English army being disbanded, he plotted 
with the officers again, as he had done before, and established 
the fact beyond all doubt by putting his signature of approval 
to a petition against the parliamentary leaders, which was 
drawn up by certain officers. When the Scottish army was dis¬ 
banded, he went to Edinburgh in four days — which was going 
very fast at that time — to plot again, and so darkly too, that 
it is difficult to decide what his whole object was. Some sup¬ 
pose that he wanted to gain over the Scottish Parliament, as he 
did in fact gain over, by presents and favours, many Scottish 
lords and men of power. Some think that he went to get 
proofs against the parliamentary leaders in England of their 
having treasonably invited the Scottish people to come and help 
them. With whatever object he went to Scotland, he did little 
good by going. At the instigation of the Earl of Montrose, a 
desperate man who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to 
kidnap three Scottish lords who escaped. A committee of the 
Parliament at home, who had followed to watch him, writing 
an account of this incident, as it was called, to the Parliament, 
the Parliament made a fresh stir about it; were, or feigned to 
be, much alarmed for themselves ; and wrote to the Earl of 
Essex, the commander-in-chief, for a guard to protect them. 

It is not absolutely proved that the king plotted in Ireland 
besides ; but it is very probable that he did, and that the queen 
did, and that he had some wild hope of gaining the Irish people 
over to his side by favouring a rise among them. Whether or 
no, they did rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion ; in 
which, encouraged by their priests, they committed such atro¬ 
cities upon numbers of the English, of both sexes and of all 
ages, as nobody could believe, but for their being related on 
oath by eye-witnesses. Whether one hundred thousand or two 
hundred thousand Protestants were murdered in this outbreak 
is uncertain; but that it was as ruthless and barbarous an out¬ 
break as ever was known among any savage people is certain. 

The king came home from Scotland, determined to make a 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


333 


great struggle for his lost power. He believed that through 
his presents and favours Scotland would take no part against 
him; and the Lord Mayor of London received him with such a 
magnificent dinner that he thought he must have become popu¬ 
lar again in England. It would take a good many lord mayors, 
however, to make a people; and the king soon found himself 
mistaken. 

Hot so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition in 
the Parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and Hamp¬ 
den and the rest, called u The Remonstrance ; ” which set forth 
all the illegal acts that the king had ever done, but politely laid 
the blame of them on his bad advisers. Even when it was passed, 
and presented to him, the king still thought himself strong 
enough to discharge Balfour from his command in the Tower, 
and to put in his place a man of had character, to whom the 
Commons instantly objected, and whom he was obliged to aban¬ 
don. At this time the old outcry about the bishops became 
louder than ever; and the old Archbishop of York was so near 
being murdered as he went down to the House of Lords, — 
being laid hold of by the mob and violently knocked about, in 
return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was yelping 
out “ Ho bishops ! ” — that he sent for all the bishops who 
were in town, and proposed to them to sign a declaration that, 
as they could no longer without danger to their lives attend 
their duty in Parliament, they protested against the lawfulness 
of everything done in their absence. This they asked the king 
to send to the House of Lords, which he did. Then the House 
of Commons impeached the whole party of bishops, and sent 
them off to the Tower. 

Taking no warning from this, but encouraged by there being 
a moderate party in the Parliament who objected to these strong 
measures, the king, on the third of January, 1642, took the rash- 
est step that ever was taken by mortal man. 

Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the attorney 
general to the House of Lords, to accuse of treason certain 
members of Parliament who as popular leaders were the most 
obnoxious to him: Lord Kimbolton, Sir Arthur Haselrig, 
Denzil Hollis, John Pym (they used to call him King Pym, he 
possessed such power and looked so big), John Hampden, and 
William Strode. The houses of those members he caused to be 
entered, and their papers to be sealed up. At the same time 


334 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


he sent a messenger to the House of Commons demanding to 
have the five gentlemen who were members of that House 
immediately produced. To this the House replied that they 
should appear as soon as there was any legal charge against 
them, and immediately adjourned. 

Next day the House of Commons sent into the city to let 
the lord mayor know that their privileges are invaded by the 
king, and that there is no safety for anybody or anything. 
Then, when the five members are gone out of the way, down 
comes the king himself, with all his guard, and from two to 
three hundred gentlemen and soldiers, of whom the greater part 
were armed. These he leaves in the hall; and then, with his 
nephew at his side, goes into the House, takes off his hat, and 
walks up to the speaker’s chair. The speaker leaves it, the 
king stands in front of it, looks about him steadily for a little 
while, and says he has come for those five members. No one 
speaks, and then he calls John Pym by name. No one speaks, 
and then he calls Denzil Hollis by name. No one speaks, and 
then he asks the speaker of the House where those five mem¬ 
bers are. The speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies 
that he is the servant of that House, and that he has neither 
eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, anything but what the House 
commands him. Upon this, the king, beaten from that time 
ever more, replies that he will seek them himself, for they have 
committed treason; and goes out, with his hat in his hand, 
amid some audible murmurs from the members. 

No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when 
all this was known. The five members had gone for safety to 
a house in Coleman Street, in the city, where they were guarded 
all night; and indeed the whole city watched in arms like an 
army. At ten o’clock in the morning, the king, already fright¬ 
ened at what he had done, came to the Gruildhall, with only 
half a dozen lords, and made a speech to the people, hoping 
they would not shelter those whom he accused of treason. 
Next day he issued a proclamation for the apprehension of the 
five members; but the Parliament minded it so little that they 
made great arrangements for having them brought down to 
Westminster in great state, five days afterwards. The king was 
so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if not for his own safety, 
that he left his palace at Whitehall, and went away with his 
queen and children*to Hampton Court. 


/ V i 


it 


•«<.- V* 



WHITEHALL 


















A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


335 


It was the eleventh of May, when the five members were car¬ 
ried in state and triumph to Westminster. They were taken 
by water. The river could not be seen for the boats on it; 
and the five members were hemmed in by barges full of men 
and great guns, ready to protect them at any cost. Along the 
Strand a large body of the train-bands of London, under their 
commander Skippon, marched to be ready to assist the little 
fleet. Beyond them came a crowd who choked the streets, 
roaring incessantly about the bishops and the papists, and cry¬ 
ing out contemptuously as they passed Whitehall, “ What has 
become of the king ? ” With this great noise outside the 
House of Commons, and with great silence within, Mr. Pym 
rose, and informed the House of the great kindness with which 
they had been received in the city. Upon that the House 
called the sheriffs in and thanked them, and requested the train- 
bands, under their commander Skippon, to guard the House of 
Commons every day. Then came four thousand men on horse¬ 
back out of Buckinghamshire, offering their services as a guard 
. too, and bearing a petition to the king, complaining of the injury 
that had been done to Mr. Hampden, who was their county- 
man and much beloved and honoured. 

When the king set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen 
and soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town 
as far as Kingston-upon-Thames ; next day Lord Digby came 
to them from the king at Hampton Court, in his coach and six, 
to inform them that the king accepted their protection. This, 
the Parliament said, was making war against the kingdom ; and 
Lord Digby fled abroad. The Parliament then immediately 
applied themselves to getting hold of the military power of the 
country, well knowing that the king was already trying hard to 
use it against them, and that he had secretly sent the Earl of 
Newcastle to Hull, to secure a valuable magazine of arms and 
gunpowder that was there. In those times, every county had 
its own magazines of arms and powder, for its own train-bands 
or militia ; so the Parliament brought in a bill claiming the 
right (which up to this time had belonged to the king) of ap¬ 
pointing the lord lieutenants of counties, who commanded these 
train-bands \ also, of having all the forts, castles, and garrisons 
in the kingdom put into the hands of such governors as they, 
the Parliament, could confide in. It also passed a law depriving 
the bishops of their votes. The king gave his assent to that 


336 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


bill, but would not abandon the right of appointing the lord 
lieutenants, though he said he was willing to appoint such as 
might be suggested to him by the Parliament. When the Earl 
of Pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on that 
question for a time, he said, “ By God ! not for one hour; ” 
and upon this he and the Parliament went to war. 

His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. 
On pretence of taking her to the country of her future husband, 
the queen was already got safely away to Holland, there to 
pawn the crown-jewels for money to raise an army on the king’s 
side. The lord admiral being sick, the House of Commons now 
named the Earl of Warwick to hold his place for a year. The 
king named another gentleman; the House of Commons took 
its own way, and the Earl of Warwick became lord admiral 
without the king’s consent. The Parliament sent orders down 
to Hull to have that magazine removed to London ; the king 
went down to take it himself. The citizens would not admit 
him into the town, and the governor would not admit him into 
the castle. The Parliament resolved that whatever the two 
Houses passed, and the king would not consent to, should be 
called an Ordinance, and should be as much a law as if he did 
consent to it. The king protested against this, and gave notice 
that these ordinances were not to be obeyed. The king, 
attended by the majority of the House of Peers, and by many 
members of the House of Commons, established himself at 
York. The chancellor went to him with the Great Seal, and 
the Parliament made a new Great Seal. The queen sent over a 
ship full of arms and ammunition, and the king issued letters to 
borrow money at high interest. The Parliament raised twenty 
regiments of foot and seventy-five troops of horse; and the 
•people willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewellery, 
and trinkets, — the married women even with their wedding- 
rings. Every member of Parliament who could raise a troop or 
a regiment in his own part of the country dressed it according 
to his taste and in his own colours, and commanded it. Fore¬ 
most among them all, Oliver Cromwell raised a troop of horse, 
thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed, who were, 
perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. 

In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed 
the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favoured 
riotous assemblages of the people, and acted tyrannically in 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


337 


imprisoning some who differed from the popular leaders. But 
again, you are always to remember that the twelve years dur¬ 
ing which the king had had his own wilful way had gone 
before ; and that nothing could make the times what they 
might, could, would, or should have been, if those twelve years 
had never rolled away. 

PART THE THIRD 

I shall not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war 
between King Charles the First and the Long Parliament, which 
lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which would fill 
many large books. It was a sad thing that Englishmen should 
once more he fighting against Englishmen on English ground; 
hut it is some consolation to know that on both sides there was 
great humanity, forbearance, and honour. The soldiers of the 
Parliament were far more remarkable for these good qualities 
than the soldiers of the king (many of whom fought for mere 
pay, without much caring for the cause) ; hut those of the no¬ 
bility and gentry who were on the king’s side were so brave, 
and so faithful to him, that their conduct cannot hut command 
our highest admiration. Among them were great numbers of 
Catholics, who took the royal side because the queen was so 
strongly of their persuasion. 

The king might have distinguished some of these gallant 
spirits, if he had been as generous a spirit himself, by giving 
them the command of his army. Instead of that, however, true 
to his old high notions of royalty, he intrusted it to his two 
nephews, Prince Bupert and Prince Maurice, who were of royal 
blood, and came over from abroad to help him. It might have 
been better for him if they had stayed away; since Prince Bu- 
pert was an impetuous, hot-headed fellow, whose only idea was 
to dash into battle at all times and seasons, and lay about him. 

The general-in-chief of the parliamentary army was the Earl 
of Essex, a gentleman of honour and an excellent soldier. A 
little while before the war broke out, there had been some riot¬ 
ing at Westminster, between certain officious law students and 
noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices and 
the general people in the streets. At that time the king’s 
friends called the crowd Boundheads, because the apprentices 
wore short hair; the crowd, in return, called their opponents 


338 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set, who pre¬ 
tended to be very military. These two words now began to be 
used to distinguish the two sides in the civil war. The Royal¬ 
ists also called the parliamentary men Rebels and Rogues, 
while the Parliament men called them Malignants, and spoke of 
themselves as the Godly, the Honest, etc. 

The war broke out at Portsmouth, where that double traitor 
Goring had again gone over to the king, and was besieged by 
the parliamentary troops. Upon this, the king proclaimed the 
Earl of Essex, and the officers serving under him traitors, and 
called upon his loyal subjects to meet him in arms, at Nottingham, 
on the twenty-fifth of August. But his loyal subjects came about 
him in scanty numbers; and it was a windy, gloomy day, and 
the royal standard got blown down ; and the whole affair was 
very melancholy. The chief engagements after this took place 
in the vale of the Red Horse near Banbury, at Brentford, at 
Devizes, at Chalgrave Field (where Mr. Hampden was so sorely 
wounded, while fighting at the head of his men, that he died 
within a week), at Newbury (in which battle Lord Falkland, 
.one of the best noblemen on the king’s side, was killed), at 
Leicester, at Naseby, at Winchester, at Marston Moor near 
York, at Newcastle, and in many other parts of England and 
Scotland. These battles were attended with various successes. 
At one time, the king was victorious; at another time, the Par¬ 
liament. But almost all the great and busy towns were against 
the king; and when it was considered necessary to fortify Lon¬ 
don, all ranks of people, from labouring men and women up to 
lords and ladies, worked hard together with heartiness and 
good-will. The most distinguished leaders on the parliamen¬ 
tary side were Hampden, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and, above all, 
Oliver Cromwell, and his son-in-law Ireton. 

During the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was 
very expensive and irksome, and to whom it was made the more 
distressing by almost every family being divided, — some of its 
members attaching themselves to one side and some to the 
other, — were over and over again most anxious for peace. So 
were some of the best men in each cause. Accordingly, treaties 
of peace were discussed between commissioners from the Parlia¬ 
ment and the king, — at York, at Oxford (where the king held 
a little parliament of his own), and at Uxbridge. But they 
came to nothing. In all these negotiations, and in all his diffi- 



TOWER OF THE OLD CASTLE, OXFORD 
























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


339 


culties, the king showed himself at his best. He was coura¬ 
geous, cool, self-possessed, and clever; but the old taint of his 
character was always in him, and he was never for one single 
moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon the historian, one of 
his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappily promised 
the queen never to make peace without her - consent, and that 
this must often be taken as his excuse. He never kept his 
word from night to morning. He signed a cessation of hostili¬ 
ties with the blood-stained Irish rebels for a sum of money, and 
invited the Irish regiments over to help him against the Parlia¬ 
ment. In the battle of Naseby, his cabinet was seized, and was 
found to contain a correspondence with the queen, in which he 
expressly told her that he had deceived the Parliament, — a 
mongrel Parliament, he called it now, as an improvement on his 
old term of vipers, — in pretending to recognise it, and to treat 
with it; and from which it further appeared that he had long 
been in secret treaty with the Duke of Lorraine for a foreign 
army of ten thousand men. Disappointed in this, he sent a 
most devoted friend of his, the Earl of Glamorgan, to Ireland, 
to conclude a secret treaty with the Catholic powers, to send 
him an Irish army/ of ten thousand men; in return for which 
he was to bestow great favours on the Catholic religion. And 
when this treaty was discovered in the carriage of a fighting 
Irish archbishop who was killed in one of the many skirmishes 
of those days, he basely denied and deserted his attached friend, 
the earl, on his being charged with high treason; and — even 
worse than this — had left blanks in the secret instructions he 
gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that he might 
thus save himself. 

At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, 1646, the king 
found himself in the city of Oxford, so surrounded by the parlia¬ 
mentary army, who were closing in upon him on all sides, that 
he felt that if he would escape he must delay no longer. So that 
night, having altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was dressed 
up as a servant, and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped be¬ 
hind him, and rode out of the town behind one of his own faith¬ 
ful followers, with a clergyman of that country, who knew the 
road well, for a guide. He rode towards London as far as Har¬ 
row, and then altered his plans, and resolved, it would seem, 
to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had been invited 
over to help the parliamentary army, and had a large force then 


340 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


in England. The king was so desperately intriguing in every¬ 
thing he did, that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this 
step. He took it, anyhow, and delivered himself up to the 
Earl of Leven, the Scottish general-in-chief, who treated him 
as an honourable prisoner. Negotiations between the Parlia¬ 
ment on the one hand, and the Scottish authorities on the other, 
as to what should be done with him, lasted until the following 
February. Then, when the king had refused to the Parliament 
the concession of that old militia point for twenty years, and 
had refused to Scotland the recognition of its solemn league 
and covenant, Scotland got a handsome sum for its army and its 
help, and the king into the bargain. He was taken, by certain 
parliamentary commissioners appointed to receive him, to one 
of his own houses, called Holmby House, near Althorpe, in 
Northamptonshire. 

While the civil war was still in progress, John Pym died, 
and was buried with great honour in Westminster Abbey, — 
not with greater honour than he deserved, for the liberties of 
Englishmen owe a mighty debt to Pym and Hampden. The 
war was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died of an 
illness brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag- 
hunt in Windsor Forest. He, too, was buried in Westminster 
Abbey, with great state. I wish it were not necessary to add 
that Archbishop Laud died upon the scaffold, when the war was 
not yet done. His trial lasted in all nearly a year ; and, it 
being doubtful even then whether the charges brought against 
him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance of the 
worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was brought 
in against him. He was a violently prejudiced and mischievous 
person; had had strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting propen¬ 
sities, as you know; and had done a world of harm. But he 
died peaceably, and like a brave old man. 

PART THE FOURTH 

When the Parliament had got the king into their hands, they 
became very anxious to get rid of their army, in which Oliver 
Cromwell had begun to acquire great power; not only because 
of his courage and high abilities, but because he professed to be 
very sincere in the Scottish sort of Puritan religion, that was 
then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. They were as 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


341 


much opposed to the bishops as to the Pope himself; and the 
very privates, drummers, and trumpeters had such an inconven¬ 
ient habit of starting up and preaching long-winded discourses, 
that I would not have belonged to that army on any account. 

So the Parliament, being far from sure hut that the army 
might begin to preach and fight against them, now it had 
nothing else to do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, to 
send another part to serve in Ireland against the rebels, and to 
keep only a small force in England. But the army would not 
consent to be broken up, except upon its own conditions; and 
when the Parliament showed an intention of compelling it, it 
acted for itself in an unexpected manner. A certain cornet, of 
the name of Joice, arrived at Holmby House one night, at¬ 
tended by four hundred horsemen, went into the king’s room 
with his hat in one hand and a pistol in the other, and told the 
king that he had come to take him away. The king was will¬ 
ing enough to go, and only stipulated that he should be publicly 
required to do so next morning. The next morning, accord¬ 
ingly, he appeared on the top of the steps of the house, and 
asked Cornet Joice, before his men and the guard set there by 
the Parliament, what authority he had for taking him away. 
To this Cornet Joice replied, “ The authority of the army.” — 
“ Have you a written commission ? ” said the king. Joice, point¬ 
ing to his four hundred men on horseback, replied, “ That is 
my commission.” — “Well,” said the king, smiling as if he 
were pleased, “ I never before read such a commission; but it 
is written in fair and legible characters. This is a company of 
as handsome proper gentlemen as I have seen a long while.” 
He was asked where he would like to live, and he said at New¬ 
market. So to Newmarket he and Cornet Joice and the four 
hundred horsemen rode; the king remarking, in the same smil¬ 
ing way, that he could ride as far at a spell as Cornet Joice, or 
any man there. 

The king quite believed, I think, that the army Avere his 
friends. He said as much to Fairfax when that general, Oliver 
Cromwell, and Ireton went to persuade him to return to the 
custody of the Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was, 
and resolved to remain as he was. And when the army moved 
nearer and nearer to London to frighten the Parliament into 
yielding to their demands, they took the king with them. It 
was a deplorable thing that England should be at the mercy of 


342 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

a great body of soldiers with arms in their hands; but the king 
certainly favoured them, at this important time of his life, as 
compared with the more lawful power that tried to control him. 
It must be added, however, that they treated him, as yet, more 
respectfully and kindly than the Parliament had done. Phey 
allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to be splen¬ 
didly entertained at various houses, and to see his children 
at Cavesham House, near Heading — for two days. Whereas 
the Parliament had been rather hard with him, and had only 
allowed him to ride out and play at bowls. 

It is much to be believed, that if the king could have been 
trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. Even 
Oliver Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man 
could enjoy his possessions in peace unless the king had his 
rights. He was not unfriendly towards the king ; he had been 
present when he received his children, and had been much 
affected by the pitable nature of the scene; he saw the king 
often ; he frequently walked and talked with him in the long 
galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace at Hampton 
Court, whither he was now removed; and in all this risked 
something of his influence with the army. But the king was 
in secret hopes of help from the Scottish people; and the 
moment he was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to 
his new friends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could 
not possibly do without him. At the very time, too, when he was 
promising to make Cromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they 
would help him up to his old height, he was writing to the 
queen that he meant to hang them. They both afterwards 
declared that they had been privately informed that such a let¬ 
ter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle 
which would be taken to Blue Boar in Holborn to be sent to 
Dover ; and that they went there, disguised as common soldiers, 
and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with the sad¬ 
dle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein found 
the letter. I see little reason to doubt the story. It is certain 
that Oliver Cromwell told one of the king’s most faithful fol¬ 
lowers that the king could not be trusted, and that he would 
not be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. 
Still, even after that, he kept a promise he had made to the 
king, by letting him know that there was a plot with a certain 
portion of the army to seize him. I believe that, in fact, he 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 343 

sincerely wanted the king to escape abroad, and so to be got 
rid of without more trouble or danger. That Oliver himself 
had work enough with the army is pretty plain; for some of 
the troops were so mutinous against him, and against those who 
acted with him at this time, that he found it necessary to have 
one man shot at the head of his regiment to overawe the rest. 

The king, when he received Oliver’s warning, made his 
escape from Hampton Court; after some indecision and uncer¬ 
tainty, he went to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At 
first he was pretty free there ; but even there, he carried on a 
pretended treaty with the Parliament, while he was really treat¬ 
ing with commissioners from Scotland to send an army into 
England to take his part. When he broke off this treaty with 
the Parliament (having settled with Scotland), and was treated 
as a prisoner, his treatment was not changed too soon, for he 
had plotted to escape that very night to a ship sent by the 
queen, which was lying off the island. 

He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scot¬ 
land. The agreement he had made with the Scottish Commis¬ 
sioners was not favourable enough to the religion of that country 
to please the Scottish clergy; and they preached against it. 
The consequence was, that the army raised in Scotland and sent 
over was too small to do much ; and that, although it was helped 
by a rising of the royalists in England and by good soldiers from 
Ireland, it could make no head against the parliamentary army 
under such men as Cromwell and Fairfax. The king’s eldest 
son, the Prince of Wales, came over from Holland with nine¬ 
teen ships (a part of the English fleet having gone over to him) 
-to help his father ; but nothing came of his voyage, and he was 
fain to return. The most remarkable event of this second civil 
war was the cruel execution by the parliamentary general of Sir 
Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, two grand royalist generals, 
who had bravely defended Colchester under every disadvantage 
of famine and distress for nearly three months. When Sir 
Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lisle kissed his body, and 
said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, “ Come nearer, and 
make sure of me.” — “ I warrant you, Sir George,” said one of 
the soldiers, “ we shall hit you.” “ Ah ! ” he returned with a 
smile; “ but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a 
time, and you have missed me.” 

The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army, — 


344 


A CHILD’S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 


who demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given 
up to them, — had voted that they would have nothing more to 
do with the king. On the conclusion, however, of this second 
civil war (which did not last more than six months), they 
appointed commissioners to treat with him. The king, then so 
far released again as to be allowed to live in a private house at 
Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed his own part of the 
negotiation with a sense that was admired by all who saw him, 
and gave up, in the end, all that was asked of him, — even 
yielding (which he had steadily refused so far) to the temporary 
abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of their church land to 
the crown. Still with his old fatal vice upon him, when his 
best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching him to yield 
all those points as the only means of saving himself from the 
army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he was hold¬ 
ing correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in Ireland, 
though declaring that he was not; and he was writing, with his 
own hand, that, in what he yielded, he meant nothing but to 
get time to escape. 

Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy 
the Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, not 
afraid of them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the 
king’s concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of 
the kingdom. Upon that Colonel Rich and Colonel Pride went 
down to the House of Commons with a regiment of horse- 
soldiers and a regiment of foot; and Colonel Pride, standing in 
the lobby with a list of the members who were obnoxious to the 
army in his hand, had them pointed out to him as they came 
through, and took them all into custody. This proceeding was 
afterwards called by the people, for a joke, Pride’s Purge. 
Cromwell was in the North, at the head of his men, at the time, 
but, when he came home, approved of what had been done. 

What with imprisoning some members, and causing others to 
stay away, the army had now reduced the House of Commons 
to some fifty or so. These soon voted that it was treason in a 
king to make war against his Parliament and his people, and 
sent an ordinance up to the House of Lords for the king’s being 
tried as a traitor. The House of Lords, then sixteen in 
number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon, the Commons made 
an ordinance of their own, that they were the supreme govern¬ 
ment of the country, and would bring the king to trial. 



WESTMINSTER, HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT 
























































































- 






































A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


345 


The king had been taken for security to a place called Hurst 
Castle, — a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with 
the coast of Hampshire by a rough road two miles long at low 
water. Thence he was ordered to be removed to Windsor ; 
thence, after being but rudely used there, and having none but 
soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was brought up to St. 
James’s Palace in London, and told that his trial was appointed 
for next day. 

On Saturday, the twentieth of January, 1649, this memorable 
trial began. The House of Commons had settled that a 
hundred and thirty-five persons should form the court; and 
these were taken from the House itself, from among the officers 
of the army, and from among the lawyers and citizens. John 
Bradshaw, serjeant-at-law, was appointed president. The place 
was Westminster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet 
chair, sat the president, with his hat (lined with plates of 
iron for his protection) on his head. The rest of the court sat 
on side benches, also wearing their hats. The king’s seat was 
covered with velvet, like that of the president, and was opposite 
to it. He was brought from St. James’s to Whitehall, and 
from Whitehall he came by water to his trial. 

When he came in he looked round very steadily on the court, 
and on the great number of spectators, and then sat down; 
presently he got up and looked round again. On the indict¬ 
ment “ against Charles Stuart, for high treason,” being read, he 
smiled several times ; and he denied the authority of the court, 
saying that there could be no Parliament without a House of 
Lords, and that he saw no House of Lords there. Also that 
the king ought to be there, and that he saw no king in the 
king’s right place. Bradshaw replied, that the court was 
satisfied with its authority, and that its authority was God’s au¬ 
thority and the kingdom’s. He then adjourned the court to the 
following Monday. On that day the trial was resumed, and went 
on all the week. W T hen the Saturday came, as the king passed 
forward to his place in the hall, some soldiers and others cried 
for “ justice ! ” and execution on him. That day, too, Bradshaw, 
like an angry sultan, wore a red robe, instead of the black robe 
he had worn before. The king was sentenced to death that day. 
As he went out, one solitary soldier said, “ God bless you, sir ! ” 
For this his officer struck him. The king said he thought the 
punishment exceeded the offence. The silver head of his 


346 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


walking-stick had fallen off while he leaned upon it, at one 
time of the trial. The accident seemed to disturb him, as if he 
thought it ominous of the falling of his own head ; and he 
admitted as much, now it was all over. 

Being taken back to Whitehall, he sent to the House of 
Commons, saying, that, as the time of his execution might be 
nigh, he wished he might he allowed to see his darling children. 
It was granted. On the Monday he was taken back to St. 
James’s ; and his two children then in England, the Princess 
Elizabeth, thirteen years old, and the Duke of Gloucester, nine 
years old, were brought to take leave of him, from Sion House, 
near Brentford. It was a sad and touching scene, when he 
kissed and fondled those poor children, and made a little 
present of two diamond seals to the princess, and gave them 
tender messages to their mother (who little deserved them, for 
she had a lover of her own whom she married soon afterwards), 
and told them that he died u for the laws and liberties of the 
land.” I am bound to say that I don’t think he did ; but I 
dare say he believed so. 

There were ambassadors from Holland, that day, to intercede 
for the unhappy king, whom you and I both wish the Parlia¬ 
ment had spared; but they got no answer. The Scottish com¬ 
missioners interceded, too ; so did the Prince of Wales, by a 
letter in which he offered, as the next heir to the throne, to 
accept any conditions from the Parliament; so did the queen, 
by letter likewise. Notwithstanding all, the warrant for the 
execution was this day signed. There is a story, that, as Oliver 
Cromwell went to the table with the pen in his hand to put his 
signature to it, he drew his pen across the face of one of the 
commissioners, who was standing near, and marked it with ink. 
That commissioner had not signed his own name yet; and the 
story adds, that, when he came to do it, he marked Cromwell’s 
face with ink in the same way. 

The king slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it 
was his last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of January, 
two hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. He put 
on two shirts, lest he should tremble with the cold, and had his 
hair very carefully combed. The warrant had been directed to 
three officers of the army, — Colonel Hacker, Colonel Hunks, and 
Colonel Phayer. At ten o’clock, the first of these came to the 
door and said it was time to go to Whitehall. The king, who 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


347 


had always been a quick walker, walked at his usual speed 
through the park, and called out to the guard, with his accus¬ 
tomed voice of command, “ March on, apace ! ” When he came 
to Whitehall, he was taken to his own bedroom, where a break¬ 
fast was set forth. As he had taken the sacrament, he would 
eat nothing more; but at about the time when the church bells 
struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through the scaffold 
not being ready), he took the advice of the good Bishop Juxon 
who was with him, and ate a little bread, and drank a glass of 
claret. Soon after he had taken this refreshment, Colonel 
Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand, and 
called for Charles Stuart. 

And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, 
which he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, 
in very different times, the fallen king passed along, until he 
came to the centre window of the Banqueting House, through 
which he emerged upon the scaffold, which was hung with 
black. He looked at the two executioners, who were dressed 
in black and masked; he looked at the troops of soldiers on 
horseback and on foot, and all looked up at him in silence; he 
looked at the vast array of spectators, filling up the view beyond, 
and turning all their faces upon him; he looked at his old 
palace of St. James’s ; and he looked at the block. He seemed 
a little troubled to find that it was so low, and asked, “ if there 
were no place higher.” Then, to those upon the scaffold, he 
said, “ that it was the Parliament who had begun the war, and 
not he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill instru¬ 
ments had gone between them. In one respect,” he said, “ he 
suffered justly; and that was because he had permitted an un¬ 
just sentence to be executed on another.” In this he referred 
to the Earl of Strafford. 

He was not at all afraid to die ; but he was anxious to die 
easily. When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, 
he broke off and called out, “ Take heed of the axe; take heed 
of the axe ! ” He also said to Colonel Hacker, “Take care that 
they do not put me to pain.” He told the executioner, “I 
shall say but very short prayers, and then thrust out my hands,” 
— as the sign to strike. 

He put his hair up under a white satin cap, which the bishop 
had carried, and said, “ I have a good cause and a gracious God 
on my side.” The bishop told him that he had but one stage 


348 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


more to travel in this weary world, and that, though it was a 
turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would 
carry him a great way, — all the way from earth to heaven. 
The king’s last word, as he gave his cloak and the George — 
the decoration from his breast — to the bishop, was, “ Remem¬ 
ber ! ” He then kneeled down, laid his head on the block, 
spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. One universal 
groan broke from the crowd ; and the soldiers, who had sat on 
their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, 
were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets. 

Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same 
time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished Charles 
the First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with 
him that he died, “ the martyr of the people; ” for the people 
had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a king’s rights, 
long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but a bad judge 
of martyrs; for he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham 
u the Martyr of his Sovereign.” 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


349 


CHAPTER XXXIY 

ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL 

PART THE FIRST 

Before sunset, on the memorable day on which King 
Charles the First was executed, the House of Commons passed 
an act declaring it treason in any one to proclaim the Prince 
of Wales, or anybody else, king of England. Soon afterwards, 
it declared that the House of Lords was useless and dangerous, 
and ought to be abolished; and directed that the late king’s 
statue should he taken down from the Royal Exchange in the 
city, and other public places. Having laid hold of some famous 
royalists who had escaped from prison, and having beheaded the 
Duke of Hamilton, Lord Holland, and Lord Capel, in Palace 
Yard (all of whom died very courageously), they then appointed 
a Council of State to govern the country. It consisted of forty- 
one members, of whom five were peers. Bradshaw was made 
president. The House of Commons also readmitted members 
who had opposed the king’s death, and made up its numbers to 
about a hundred and fifty. 

But it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to 
deal with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. Before 
the king’s execution, the army had appointed some of its officers 
to remonstrate between them and the Parliament; and now the 
common soldiers began to take that office upon themselves. 
The regiments under orders for Ireland mutinied ; one troop of 
horse in the city of London seized their own flag, and refused 
to obey orders. For this, the ringleader was shot: which did 
not mend the matter; for both his comrades and the people 
made a public funeral for him, and accompanied the body to the 
grave with sound of trumpets, and with a gloomy procession of 
persons carrying bundles of rosemary steeped in blood. Oliver 
was the only man to deal with such difficulties as these; and he 
soon cut them short by bursting at midnight into the town of 
Burford, near Salisbury, where the mutineers were sheltered, 
taking four hundred of them prisoners, and shooting a number 


350 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


of them by sentence of court-martial. The soldiers soon found, 
as all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be trifled with. 
And there was an end of the mutiny. 

The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet; so, on 
hearing of the king’s execution, it proclaimed the Prince of 
Wales, King Charles the Second, on condition of his respecting 
the Solemn League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that 
time, and so 'was Montrose, from whose help he had hopes 
enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners 
from Scotland, just as his father might have done. These 
hopes were soon at an end; for Montrose, having raised a few 
hundred exiles in Germany, and landed with them in Scotland, 
found that the people there, instead of joining him, deserted 
the country at his approach. He was soon taken prisoner, 
and carried to Edinburgh. There he was received with every 
possible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers going 
two and two before him. He was sentenced by the Parlia¬ 
ment to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his 
head set on a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed 
in other places, according to the old barbarous manner. He 
said he had always acted under the royal orders, and only wished 
he had limbs enough to be distributed through Christendom, 
that it might be the more widely known how loyal he had 
been. He went to the scaffold in a bright and brilliant dress, 
and made a bold end at thirty-eight years of age. The breath 
was scarcely out of his body when Charles abandoned his mem¬ 
ory, and denied that he had ever given him orders to rise in 
his behalf. Oh, the family failing was strong in that Charles 
then ! 

Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command 
the army in Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the 
sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly 
in the siege of Drogheda, where no quarter was given, and 
where he found at least a thousand of the inhabitants shut up 
together in the great church, every one of whom was killed by 
his soldiers, usually known as Oliver’s Ironsides. There were 
numbers of friars and priests among them ; and Oliver gruffly 
wrote home in his despatch that these were u knocked on the 
head” like the rest. 

But Charles having got over to Scotland, where the men of 
the Solemn League and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull 



DROGHEDA 









A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


351 


life, and made him very weary with long sermons and grim 
Sundays, the Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver home to 
knock the Scottishmen on the head for setting up that prince. 
Oliver left his son-in-law, Ireton, as general in Ireland, in his 
stead (he died there afterwards), and he imitated the example 
of his father-in-law with such good will that he brought the 
country to subjection, and laid it at the feet of the Parliament. 
In the end, they passed an act for the settlement of Ireland, 
generally pardoning all the common people, but exempting from 
this grace such of the wealthier sort as had been concerned in 
the rebellion, or in any killing of Protestants, or who refused to 
lay down their arms. Great numbers of Irish were got out of 
the country to serve under Catholic powers abroad; and a 
quantity of land was declared to have been forfeited by past 
offences, and was given to people who had lent money to the 
Parliament early in the war. These were sweeping measures; 
but if Oliver Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had 
stayed in Ireland, he would have done more yet. 

However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for 
Scotland; so home Oliver came, and was made commander of 
all the forces of the Commonwealth of England, and in three 
days away he went with sixteen thousand soldiers to fight the 
Scottishmen. Now, the Scottishmen being then — as you will 
generally find them now — mighty cautious, reflected that the 
troops they had were not used to war like the Ironsides, and 
would be beaten in an open fight. Therefore they said, " If 
we lie quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here, and if all the 
farmers come into the town and desert the country, the Iron¬ 
sides will be driven out by iron hunger, and be forced to go 
away.” This was, no doubt, the wisest plan; but as the 
Scottish clergy would interfere with what they knew nothing 
about, and would perpetually preach long sermons, exhorting 
the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their 
heads that they absolutely must come out and fight. Accord¬ 
ingly, in an evil hour for themselves, they came out of their 
safe position. Oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three 
thousand, and took ten thousand prisoners. 

To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favour, 
Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproach¬ 
ing the memory of his father and mother, and representing him¬ 
self as a most religious prince, to whom the Solemn League and 


352 


A CHILD’S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND 


Covenant was as dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in 
this, and soon afterwards galloped away on horseback to join 
some tiresome Highland friends, who were always flourishing 
dirks and broadswords. He was overtaken, and induced to re¬ 
turn ; but this attempt, which was called “ The Start,” did him 
just so much service that they did not preach quite such long 
sermons at him afterwards as they had done before. 

On the first of January, 1651, the Scottish people crowned 
him at Scone. He immediately took the chief command of an 
army of twenty thousand men, and marched to Stirling. His 
hopes were heightened, I dare say, by the redoubtable Oliver 
being ill of an ague ; hut Oliver scrambled out of bed in no 
time, and went to work with such energy that he got behind 
the royalist army, and cut it off from all communication with 
Scotland. There was nothing for it then but to go on to Eng¬ 
land ; so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor and 
some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straight¬ 
way. His proclamation, however, was of little use to him: for 
very few royalists appeared; and, on the very same day, two 
people were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his 
cause. Up came Oliver to Worcester too, at double-quick speed ; 
and he and his Ironsides so laid about them in the great battle 
which was fought there that they completely beat the Scottish- 
men, and destroyed the royalist army, though the Scottishmen 
fought so gallantly that it took five hours to do. 

The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him 
good service long afterwards; for it induced many of the gener¬ 
ous English people to take a romantic interest in him, and to 
think much better of him than he ever deserved. He fled in 
the night, with not more than sixty followers, to the house of 
a Catholic lady in Staffordshire. There, for his greater safety, 
the whole sixty left him. He cropped his hair, stained his face 
and hands brown as if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes of 
a labouring countryman, and went out in the morning with his 
axe in his hand, accompanied by four wood-cutters who were 
brothers, and another man who was their brother-in-law. These 
good fellows made a bed for him under a tree, as the weather 
was very bad; and the wife of one of them brought him food 
to eat; and the old mother of the four brothers came and fell 
down on her knees before him in the wood, and thanked God 
that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At night, he 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


353 


came out of the forest, and went on to another house which was 
near the river Severn, with the intention of passing into 
Wales; hut the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges 
were guarded, and all the boats were made fast. So after lying 
in a hayloft covered over with hay for some time, he came out 
of his place, attended by Colonel Careless, a Catholic gentleman 
who had met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next 
day, up in the shady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky 
for the king that it was September-time, and that the leaves 
had not begun to fall, since he and the colonel, perched up in 
this tree, could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, 
and could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beat¬ 
ing the boughs. 

After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all 
blistered ; and having been concealed all one day in a house, 
which was searched by the troopers while he was there, went 
with Lord Wilmot, another of his good friends, to a place called 
Bentley, where one Miss Lane, a Protestant lady, had obtained 
a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation 
of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant, he rode in the 
saddle before this young lady to the house of Sir John Winter, 
while Lord Wilmot rode there boldly, like a plain country gen¬ 
tleman, with dogs at his heels. It happened that Sir John 
Winter’s butler had been servant in Bichmond Palace, and knew 
Charles the moment he set eyes upon him; but the butler was 
faithful, and kept the secret. As no ship could be found to 
carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go — still 
travelling with Miss Lane as her servant — to another house, at 
Trent near Sherborne in Dorsetshire ; and then Miss Lane and 
her cousin, Mr. Lascelles, who had gone on horseback beside 
her all the way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to 
marry that cousin \ for I am sure she must have been a brave, 
kind girl. If I had been that cousin, I should certainly have 
loved Miss Lane. 

When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe 
at Trent, a ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which 
engaged to take two gentlemen to I ranee. In the evening of 
the same day, the king — now riding as servant before another 
young lady — set off for a public-house at a place called Chai- 
mouth, where the captain of the vessel was to take him on 
board. But the captain’s wife, being afraid of her husband 


354 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


getting into trouble, locked him up, and would not let him sail. 
Then they went away to Bridport, and, coming to the inn there, 
found the stable-yard full of soldiers who were on the look-out 
for Charles, and who talked about him while they drank. He 
had such presence of mind, that he led the horses of his party 
through the yard as any other servant might have done, and 
said, “ Come, out of the way, you soldiers ; let us have room to 
pass here ! ” As he went along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, who 
rubbed his eyes, and said to him, “ Why, I was formerly ser¬ 
vant to Mr. Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen 
you there, young man ? ” He certainly had ; for Charles had 
lodged there. His ready answer was, “ Ah! I did live with 
him once ; but I have no time to talk now. We ’ll have a pot 
of beer together when I come back.” 

From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay 
there concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near 
Salisbury; where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden 
five days, until the master of a collier, lying off Shoreham in 
Sussex, undertook to convey a u gentleman ” to France. On the 
night of the fifteenth of October, accompanied by two colonels 
and a merchant, the king rode to Brighton, then a little fishing- 
village, to give the captain of the ship a supper before going on 
board; but so many people knew him, that this captain knew 
him too, and not only he, but the landlord and landlady also. 
Before he went away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed 
his hand, and said he hoped to live to be a lord and to see his 
wife a lady; at which Charles laughed. They had had a good 
supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and drinking, at 
which the king was a first-rate hand ; so the captain assured 
him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed 
that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles 
should address the sailors, and say he was a gentleman in debt, 
who was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped 
they would join him in persuading the captain to put him 
ashore in France. As the king acted his part very well indeed, 
and gave the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they begged the 
captain to do what such a worthy gentleman asked. He pre¬ 
tended to yield to their entreaties, and the king got safe to 
Normandy. 

Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty 
of forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


355 


have gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign 
enemy went, but for getting into trouble with the Dutch, who, 
in the spring of the year 1651, sent a fleet into the Downs 
under their Admiral Van Tromp, to call upon the bold English 
Admiral Blake (who was there with half as many ships as the 
Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging broadside instead, 
and beat off Van Tromp j who, in the autumn, came back again 
with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake — who still 
was only half as strong — to fight him. Blake fought him all 
day ; but finding that the Dutch were too many for him, got 
quietly off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but 
goes cruising and boasting about the Channel, between the 
North Foreland and the Isle of Wight, with a great Dutch 
broom tied to his masthead, as a sign that he could and would 
sweep the English off the sea ? Within three months, Blake 
lowered his tone though, and his broom too ; for he and two 
other bold commanders, Dean and Monk, fought him three 
whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom 
to pieces, and settled his business. 

Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to 
complain to the Parliament that they were not governing the 
nation properly, and to hint that they thought they could do it 
better themselves. Oliver, who had now made up his mind to 
be the head of the state, or nothing at all, supported them in 
this, and called a meeting of officers and his own parliamentary 
friends, at his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider the best way 
of getting rid of the Parliament. It had now lasted just as 
many years as the king’s unbridled power had lasted, before it 
came into existence. The end of the deliberation was, that 
Oliver went down to the House in his usual plain black dress, 
with his usual grey worsted stockings, but with an unusual 
party of soldiers behind him. These last he left in the lobby, 
and then went in and sat down. Presently he got up, made 
the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done with 
them, stamped his foot, and said, “ You are no Parliament. 
Bring them in, bring them in ! ” At this signal the door flew 
open, and the soldiers appeared. “ This is not honest,” said Sir 
Harry Vane, one of the members. “ Sir Harry Vane! ” cried 
Cromwell; “ 0 Sir Harry Vane ! the Lord deliver me from Sir 
Harry Vane! ” Then he pointed out members one by one, and 
said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, 


356 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the speaker to 
he walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the House, 
called the mace upon the table — which is a sign that the 
House is sitting — “a fool’s bauble,” and said, “Here, carry it 
away ! ” Being obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked 
the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to Whitehall 
again, and told his friends, who were still assembled there, 
what he had done. 

They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary 
proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own 
way; which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and 
which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon 
earth. In this Parliament there sat a well-known leather- 
seller, who had taken the singular name of Praise God Bare- 
bones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebone’s 
Parliament, though its general name was the Little Parliament. 
As it soon appeared that it was not going to put Oliver in the 
first place, it turned out to be not at all like the beginning 
of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was not to be 
borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much the 
same way as he had disposed of the other; and then the coun¬ 
cil of officers decided that he must be made the supreme 
authority of the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector 
of the Commonwealth. 

So on the sixteenth of December, 1653, a great procession 
was formed at Oliver’s door; and he came out in a black velvet 
suit and a big pair of boots, and got into his coach, and went 
down to Westminster, attended by the judges, and the lord 
mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and wonderful 
personages of the country. There, in the Court of Chancery, he 
publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then he was 
sworn, and the city sword was handed to him, and the seal was 
handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him 
which are usually handed to kings and queens on state occa¬ 
sions. When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite 
made, and completely finished off as Lord Protector ; and sev¬ 
eral of the Ironsides preached about it at great length, all the 
evening. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


357 


PART THE SECOND 

Oliver Cromwell, — whom the people long called Old Noll, 
— in accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a 
certain paper which was handed to him, called “ The Instru¬ 
ment,” to summon a Parliament, consisting of between four and 
five hundred members, in the election of which neither the 
royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. He had 
also pledged himself that this Parliament should not be dis¬ 
solved without its own consent until it had sat five months. 

When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of 
three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the 
credit and happiness of the country. To keep down the more 
violent members, he required them to sign a recognition of what 
they were forbidden by “The Instrument” to do; which was 
chiefly to take the power from one single person at the head of 
the state, or to command the army. Then he dismissed them 
to go to work. With his usual vigour and resolution he went 
to work himself with some frantic preachers, who were rather 
overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain and a tyrant, 
by shutting up their chapels, and sending a few of them off to 
prison. 

There was not at that time in England, or anywhere else, 
a man so able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. 
Although he ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy 
tax on the royalists (but not until they had plotted against his 
life), he ruled wisely, and as the times required. He caused 
England to be so respected abroad, that I wish some lords and 
gentlemen, who have governed it under kings and queens in later 
days, would have taken a leaf out of Oliver Cromwell’s book. 
He sent bold Admiral Blake to the Mediterranean Sea, to make 
the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds for injuries he 
had done to British subjects, and spoliation he had committed 
on English merchants. He further despatched him and his 
fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to have every English ship 
and every Englishman delivered up to him that had been taken 
by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously done ; and 
it began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world, that 
England was governed by a man in earnest, who would not 
allow the English name to be insulted or slighted anywhere. 


358 


A CHILD’S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 


These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet 
to sea against the Dutch ; and the two powers, each with one 
hundred ships upon its side, met in the English Channel off the 
North Foreland, where the fight lasted all day long. Dean was 
killed in this fight; but Monk, who commanded in the same 
ship with him, threw his cloak over his body, that the sailors 
might not know of his death, and be disheartened. Nor were 
they. The English broadsides so exceedingly astonished the 
Dutch, that they sheered off at last, though the redoubtable 
Van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns for deserting 
their flag. Soon afterwards the two fleets engaged again, off 
the coast of Holland. There the valiant Van Tromp was shot 
through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace was made. 

Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domi¬ 
neering and bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not 
only claimed a right to all the gold and silver that could be 
found in South America, and treated the ships of all other 
countries who visited those regions as pirates, but put English 
subjects into the horrible Spanish prisons of the Inquisition. 
So Oliver told the Spanish ambassador that English ships must 
be free to go wherever they would, and that English merchants 
must not be thrown into those same dungeons ; no, not for the 
pleasure of all the priests in Spain. To this the Spanish 
ambassador replied, that the gold and silver country and the 
Holy Inquisition were his king’s two eyes, neither of which he 
could submit to have put out. Very well, said Oliver, then 
he was afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes directly. 

So another fleet was despatched under two commanders, Penn 
and Venables, for Hispaniola; where, however, the Spaniards 
got the better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet came home 
again, after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, indignant with 
the two commanders who had not done what bold Admiral Blake 
would have done, clapped them both into prison, declared war 
against Spain, and made a treaty with France, in virtue of 
which it was to shelter the king and his brother, the Duke 
of York, no longer. Then he sent a fleet abroad under bold 
Admiral Blake, which brought the king of Portugal to his 
senses,—just to keep its hand in, — and then engaged a 
Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more, laden 
with silver to the value of two millions of pounds; which daz¬ 
zling prize was brought from Portsmouth to London in wagons, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 359 

with the populace of all the towns and villages through which 
the wagons passed shouting with all their might. After this 
victory, bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of Santa 
Cruz to cut off the Spanish treasure-ships coming from Mexico. 
There he found them, ten in number, with seven others to take 
care of them, and a big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring 
and blazing away at him with great guns. Blake cared no more 
for great guns than for pop-guns, — no more for their hot iron 
balls than for snow-balls. He dashed into the harbour, cap¬ 
tured and burnt every one of the ships, and came sailing out 
again triumphantly, with the victorious English flag flying at 
his mast-head. This was the last triumph of this great com¬ 
mander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite worn 
out. He died as his successful ship was coming into Plymouth 
Harbour amidst the joyful acclamations of the people, and was 
buried in state in Westminster Abbey, — not to lie there long. 

Over and above all this, Oliver found that the Vaudois, or 
Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently 
treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for 
their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly 
he informed those powers that this was a thing which Protestant 
England would not allow; and he speedily carried his point, 
through the might of his great name, and established their right 
to worship God in peace after their own harmless manner. 

Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting 
with the French against the Spaniards, that, after they had 
assaulted the town of Dunkirk together, the French king in 
person gave it up to the English, that it might be a token 
to them of their might and valour. 

There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic 
religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and 
among the disappointed republicans. He had a difficult game 
to play ; for the royalists were always ready to side with either 
party against him. The “ king over the water,” too, as Charles 
was called, had no scruples about plotting with any one against 
his life; although there is reason to suppose that he would 
willingly have married one of his daughters, if Oliver would 
have had such a son-in-law. There was a certain Colonel Saxby 
of the army, once a great supporter of Oliver’s, but now turned 
against him, who was a grievous trouble to him through all this 
part of his career j and who came and went between the discon- 


360 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

tented in England and Spain, and Charles, who put himself in 
alliance with Spain on being thrown off by France. This man 
died in prison at last; hut not until there had been very seri¬ 
ous plots between the royalists and republicans, and an actual 
rising of them in England, when they hurst into the city of 
Salisbury on a Sunday night, seized the judges who were going 
to hold the assizes there next day, and would have hanged them 
hut for the merciful objections of the more temperate of their 
number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that he soon put 
this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies ; and it was 
well for one of its chief managers — that same Lord Wilmot who 
had assisted in Charles’s flight, and was now Earl of Rochester — 
that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and 
ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his 
enemies little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six per¬ 
sons, called the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest, and most 
secret confidence of Charles. One of the foremost of these very 
men, a Sir Richard Willis, reported to Oliver everything that 
passed among them, and had two hundred a year for it. 

Miles Syndarcomb, also of the old army, was another conspir¬ 
ator against the Protector. He and a man named Cecil bribed 
one of his life-guards to let them have good notice when he 
was going out, — intending to shoot him from a window. But 
owing either to his caution or his good fortune, they could never 
get an aim at him. Disappointed in this design, they got into 
the chapel in Whitehall, with a basketful of combustibles, which 
were to explode, by means of a slow match, in six hours; then, 
in the noise and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. 
But the life-guardsman himself disclosed this plot; and they 
were seized, and Miles died (or killed himself in prison) a little 
while before he was ordered for execution. A few such plot¬ 
ters Oliver caused to he beheaded, a few more to he hanged, 
and many more, including those who rose in arms against him, 
to he sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were rigid, he 
w r as impartial, too, in asserting the laws of England. When a 
Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, 
killed a London citizen in mistake for another man with whom 
he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried before a 
jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in 
spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London. 

One of Oliver’s own friends, the Duke of Oldenburgh, in 


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sending him a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near 
doing more to please the royalists than all the plotters put to¬ 
gether. One day, Oliver went with his coach, drawn by these 
six horses, into Hyde Park, to dine with his secretary and some 
of his other gentlemen under the trees there. After dinner, 
being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends inside 
and to drive them home; a postilion riding one of the foremost 
horses, as the custom was. On account of Oliver’s being too 
free with the whip, the six fine horses went off at a gallop, the 
postilion got thrown, and Oliver fell upon the coacli-pole, and 
narrowly escaped being shot by his own pistol, which got entan¬ 
gled with his clothes in the harness, and went off. He was 
dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot came out of the 
shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under the broad 
body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The gentle¬ 
men inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of 
all parties were much disappointed. 

The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Crom¬ 
well is a history of his Parliaments. His first one not pleasing 
him at all, he waited until the five months were out, and then 
dissolved it. The next was better suited to his views; and 
from that he desired to get — if he could with safety to him¬ 
self — the title of king. He had had this in his mind some 
time : whether because he thought that the English people, 
being more used to the title, were more likely to obey it, or 
whether because he really wished to be a king himself, and to 
leave the succession to that title in his family, is far from clear. 
He was already as high, in England and in all the world, as he 
would ever be; and I doubt if he cared for the mere name. 
However, a paper, called the “ Humble Petition and Advice,” 
was presented to him by the House of Commons, praying him 
to take a high title and to appoint his successor. That he 
would have taken the title of king there is no doubt but for 
the strong opposition of the army. This induced him to for¬ 
bear, and to assent only to the other points of the petition. 
Upon which occasion there was another grand show in West¬ 
minster Hall, when the Speaker of the House of Commons 
formally invested him with a purple robe lined with ermine, 
and presented him with a splendidly bound Bible, and put a 
golden sceptre in his hand. The next time the Parliament 
met, he called a House of Lords of sixty members, as the peti- 


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tion gave him power to do ; but as that Parliament did not 
please him either, and would not proceed to the business of the 
country, he jumped into a coach one morning, took six guards 
with him, and sent them to the right-about. I wish this had 
been a warning to Parliaments to avoid long speeches, and do 
more work. 

It was the month of August, 1658, when Oliver Cromwell’s 
favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole (who had lately lost her 
youngest son), lay very ill, and his mind was greatly troubled, 
because he loved her dearly. Another of his daughters was 
married to Lord Falconberg, another to the grandson of the Earl 
of Warwick, and he had made his son Richard one of the mem¬ 
bers of the L T pper House. He was very kind and loving to 
them all, being a good father and a good husband; but he loved 
this daughter the best of the family, and went down to Hamp¬ 
ton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir from 
her sick room until she died. Although his religion had been 
of a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. He 
had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open table 
once a week for all officers of the army not below 7 the rank of 
captain, and had abvays preserved in his house a quiet, sensible 
dignity. He encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved 
to have them about him. Milton was one of his great friends. 
He was good-humoured too, with the nobility, whose dresses 
and manners were very different from his ; and to show them 
what good information he had, he would sometimes jokingly tell 
them when they v 7 ere his guests, where they had last drunk the 
health of the u king over the water,” and w 7 ould recommend 
them to be more private (if they could) another time. But he 
had lived in busy times, had borne the w 7 eight of heavy state 
affairs, and had often gone in fear of his life. He was ill of the 
gout and ague; and when the death of his beloved child came 
upon him in addition, he sank, never to raise his head again. 
He told his physicians on the twenty-fourth of August, that 
the Lord had assured him that he was not to die in that illness, 
and that he would certainly get better. This was only his sick 
fancy ; for on the third of September, which was the anniversary 
of the great battle of Worcester, and the day of the year which 
he called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth year of his 
age. He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some hours, 
but he had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


363 


day before. The whole country lamented his death. If you 
want to know the real worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real 
services to his country, you can hardly do better than compare 
England under him with England under Charles the Second. 

He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him ; and after 
there had been, at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying-in¬ 
state more splendid than sensible, — as all such vanities after 
death are, I think, — Richard became Lord Protector. He was 
an amiable country gentleman, but had none of his father’s 
great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post in such a storm 
of parties. Richard’s Protectorate, which only lasted a year 
and a half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the 
army and the Parliament, and between the officers among them¬ 
selves ; and of a growing discontent among the people, who had 
far too many long sermons, and far too few amusements, and 
wanted a change. At last General Monk got the army well 
into his own hands, and then, in pursuance of a secret plan 
he seems to have entertained from the time of Oliver’s death, 
declared for the king’s cause. He did not do this openly ; but 
in his place in the House of Commons, as one of the members 
for Devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir John 
Greenville, who came to the House with a letter from Charles, 
dated from Breda, and with whom he had previously been in 
secret communication. There had been plots and counterplots, 
and a recall of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an 
end of the Long Parliament, and risings of the royalists that 
were made too soon ; and most men being tired out, and there 
being no one to head the country now Great Oliver was dead, it 
was readily agreed to welcome Charles Stuart. Some of the 
wiser and better members said, — what was most true, — that 
in the letter from Breda, he gave no real promise to govern 
well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himself 
beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit 
of the kingdom. Monk said, however, it would be all right 
when he came, and he could not come too soon. 

So everybody found out all in a moment that the country 
must be prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to conde¬ 
scend to reign over it; and there was a prodigious firing off of 
guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of 
caps. The people drank the king’s health by thousands in the 
open streets, and everybody rejoiced. Down came the arms of 


364 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


the Commonwealth, up went the royal arms instead, and out 
came the public money. Fifty thousand pounds, for the king, 
ten thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five 
thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of Gloucester. 
Prayers for these gracious Stuarts were put up in all the 
churches; commissioners were sent to Holland (which suddenly 
found out that Charles was a great man, and that it loved him) 
to invite the king home; Monk and the Kentish grandees went 
to Dover to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed , 
and embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself 
and his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shout¬ 
ings, and passed through the army at Blackheath on the twenty- 
ninth of May (his birthday), 1660. Greeted by splendid dinners 
under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from ail the houses, 
by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of noblemen 
and gentlemen in rich dresses, by city companies, train-bands, 
drummers, trumpeters, the great lord mayor, and the majestic 
aldermen, the king went on to Whitehall. On entering it, he 
commemorated his restoration with the joke that it really would 
seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago, 
since everybody told him that he had always wished for him 
with all his heart. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


365 


CHAPTER XXXV 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY 

MONARCH 

PART THE FIRST 

There never were such profligate times in England as under 
Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his 
swarthy, ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in 
his Court at A hitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst 
vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), 
drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and com¬ 
mitting every kind of profligate excess. It has been a fashion 
to call Charles the Second “ The Merry Monarch.” Let me try 
to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that 
were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat 
upon his merry throne, in merry England. 

The first merry proceeding was — of course — to declare that 
he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings 
that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted 
earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for 
the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one mil¬ 
lion two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon 
him for life that old disputed tonnage and poundage which had 
been so bravely fought for. Then General Monk, being made 
Earl of Albemarle, and a few other royalists similarly rewarded, 
the law went to work to see what was to be done to those per¬ 
sons (they were called regicides) who had been concerned in 
making a martyr of the late king. Ten of these were merrily 
executed ; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, 
Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the 
Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against 
the martyr with all his heart. These executions were so ex¬ 
tremely merry, that every horrible circumstance which Crom¬ 
well had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. The 
hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living bodies; 
their bowels were burned before their faces; the executioner 


S6G 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


cut jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands to¬ 
gether, that were reeking with the blood of the last; and the 
heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the living to the 
place of suffering. Still, even so merry a monarch could not 
force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what 
he had done. Nay, the most memorable thing said among them 
was, that if the thing were to do again they would do it. 

Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against 
Strafford, and was one of the most staunch of the republicans, 
was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. When 
he came upon the scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his 
own defence with great power, his notes of what he had meant 
to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums 
and trumpets were ordered to sound lustily and drown his 
voice; for the people had been so much impressed by what the 
regicides had calmly said with their last breath that it was the 
custom now to have the drums and trumpets always under the 
scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said no more than this : u It 
is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man ; ” 
and bravely died. 

These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even 
merrier. On the anniversary of the late king’s death, the 
bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were torn out 
of their graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, 
hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. 
Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be 
stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared 
to look the living Oliver in the face for half a moment! Think, 
after you have read this reign, what England was under Oliver 
Cromwell, who was torn out of his grave, and what it was 
under this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry Judas, over 
and over again. 

Of course, the remains of Oliver’s wife and daughter were 
not to be spared either, though they had been most excellent 
women. The base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, 
which had been buried in the abbey ; and — to the eternal dis¬ 
grace of England — they were thrown into a pit, together with 
the mouldering bones of Pym, and of the brave and bold old 
Admiral Blake. 

The clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped to 
get the nonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down in 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


367 


this reign, and to have but one prayer-book and one service 
for all kinds of people, no matter what their private opinions 
were. This was pretty well, I think, for a Protestant Church, 
which had displaced the Romish Church because people had a 
right to their own opinion in religious matters. However, they 
carried it with a high hand, and a prayer-book was agreed upon, 
in which the extremest opinions of Archbishop Laud were not 
forgotten. An act was passed, too, preventing any dissenter 
from holding any office under any corporation. So the regular 
clergy, in their triumph, were soon as merry as the king. The 
army being by this time disbanded, and the king crowned, every¬ 
thing was to go on easily for ever more. 

I must say a word here about the king’s family. He had 
not been long upon the throne, when his brother the Duke of 
Gloucester, and his sister the Princess of Orange, died, within 
a few months of each other, of smallpox. His remaining sister, 
the Princess Henrietta, married the Duke of Orleans, the brother 
of Louis the Fourteenth, king of France. His brother James, 
Duke of York, was made high admiral, and by and by became 
a Catholic. He was a gloomy, sullen, bilious sort of man, with 
a remarkable partiality for the ugliest women in the country. 
He married, under very discreditable circumstances, Anne Hyde, 
the daughter of Lord Clarendon, then the king’s principal 
minister, — not at all a delicate minister either, but doing 
much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. It became 
important now that the king himself should be married; and 
divers foreign monarchs, not very particular about the character 
of their son-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. The 
king of Portugal offered his daughter, Catherine of Braganza, 
and fifty thousand pounds; in addition to which, the French 
king, who was favourable to that match, offered a loan of another 
fifty thousand. The king of Spain, on the other hand, offered 
any one out of a dozen of princesses, and other hopes of gain. 

^ But the ready money carried the day, and Catherine came over 
in state to her merry marriage. 

The whole court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched 
men and shameless women; and Catherine’s merry husband 
insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until she con¬ 
sented to receive those worthless creatures as her very good 
friends, and to degrade herself by their companionship. A Mrs. 
Palmer, whom the king made Lady Castlemaine, and after 


368 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


wards Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most powerful of 
the bad women about the court, and had great influence with 
the king nearly all through his reign. Another merry lady, 
named Moll Davies, a dancer at the theatre, was afterwards her 
rival. So was Nell Gwyn, first an orange-girl, and then an 
actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the 
worst things I know is that actually she does seem to have 
been fond of the king. The first Duke of St. Albans was this 
orange-girl’s child. In like manner the son of a merry waiting- 
lady, whom the king created Duchess of Portsmouth, became 
the Duke of Richmond. Upon the whole, it is not so bad a 
thing to be a commoner. 

The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these 
merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) 
lords and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred 
thousand pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket- 
money, made a merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French 
king for five millions of livres. When I think of the dignity 
to which Oliver Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign 
powers, and when I think of the manner in which he gained 
for England this very Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider 
that, if the Merry Monarch had been made to follow his father 
for this action, he would have received his just deserts. 

Though he was like his father in none of that father’s greater 
qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no trust. When 
he sent that letter to the Parliament, from Breda, he did ex¬ 
pressly promise that all sincere religious opinions should he 
respected. Yet he was no sooner firm in his power than he 
consented to one of the worst acts of Parliament ever passed. 
Under this law, every minister who should not give his solemn 
assent to the prayer-hook by a certain day was declared to he a 
minister no longer, and to he deprived of his church. The con¬ 
sequence of this was that some two thousand honest men were 
taken from their congregations, and reduced to dire poverty and 
distress. It was followed by another outrageous law, called the 
Conventicle Act, by which any person above the age of sixteen, 
who was present at any religious service not according to the 
prayer-book, was to he imprisoned three months for the first 
offence, six for the second, and to he transported for the third. 
This act alone filled the prisons, which were then most dreadful 
dungeons, to overflowing. 



ST. GILES’S 






























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


369 


The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. A 
base parliament, usually known as the drunken parliament, in 
consequence of its principal members being seldom sober, had 
been got together to make laws against the Covenanters, and 
force all men to be of one mind in religious matters. The 
Marquis of Argyle, relying on the king’s honour, had given 
himself up to him ; but he was wealthy, and his enemies wanted 
his wealth. He was tried for treason, on the evidence of some 
private letters in which he had expressed opinions — as well he 
might — more favourable to the government of the late Lord 
Protector than of the present merry and religious king. He was 
executed, as were two men of mark among the Covenanters ; 
and Sharp, a traitor who had once been the friend of the Pres¬ 
byterians and betrayed them, was made Archbishop of St. 
Andrew’s, to teach the Scotch how to like bishops. 

Things being in this merry state at home, the Merry Monarch 
undertook a war with the Dutch; principally because they in¬ 
terfered with an African company, established with the two 
objects of buying gold-dust and slaves, of which the Duke of 
York was a leading member. After some preliminary hostilities, 
the said duke sailed to the coast of Holland with a fleet of 
ninety-eight vessels of war, and four fire-ships. This engaged 
with the Dutch fleet, of no fewer than one hundred and thirteen 
ships. In the great battle between the two forces, the Dutch 
lost eighteen ships, four admirals, and seven thousand men. But 
the English on shore were in no mood of exultation when they 
heard the news. 

For this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in 
London. During the winter of 1664 it had been whispered 
about that some few people had died here and there of the dis¬ 
ease called the Plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs 
around London. News was not published at that time as it is 
now, and some people believed these rumours, and some dis¬ 
believed them, and they were soon forgotten. But in the 
month of May, 1665, it began to be said all over the town that 
the disease had burst out with great violence in St. Giles’s, and 
that the people were dying in great numbers. This soon turned 
out to be awfully true. The roads out of London were choked 
up by people endeavouring to escape from the infected city, and 
large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. The disease 
soon spread so fast that it was necessary to shut up the houses in 


370 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


which sick people were, and to cut them off from communication 
with the living. Every one of these houses was marked on the 
outside of the door with a red cross, and the words, “ Lord, 
have mercy upon us ! ” The streets were all deserted, grass 
grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in the 
air. When night came on, dismal rumblings used to be heard; 
and these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended by men 
with veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, who rang 
doleful hells, and cried in a loud and solemn voice, “ Bring out 
your dead! ” The corpses put into these carts were buried by 
torchlight in great pits; no service being performed over them; 
all men being afraid to stay for a moment on the brink of the 
ghastly graves. In the general fear, children ran away from 
their parents, and parents from their children. Some who were 
taken ill, died alone, and without any help. Some were stabbed 
or strangled by hired nurses, who robbed them of all their 
money, and stole the very beds on which they lay. Some went 
mad, dropped from the windows, ran through the streets, and in 
their pain and frenzy flung themselves into the river. 

These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked and 
dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing roaring 
songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went out and died. 
The fearful and superstitious persuaded themselves that they 
saw supernatural sights, — burning swords in the sky, gigantic 
arms, and darts. Others pretended that at night vast crowds 
of ghosts walked round and round the dismal pits. One mad¬ 
man, naked, and carrying a brazier full of burning coals upon 
his head, stalked through the streets, crying out that he was a 
prophet, commissioned to denounce the vengeance of the Lord 
on wicked London. Another always went to and fro, exclaim¬ 
ing, “ Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed ! ” A 
third awoke the echoes in the dismal streets by night and by 
day, and made the blood of the sick run cold, by calling out 
incessantly, in a deep, hoarse voice, “ Oh, the great and dreadful 
God! ” 

Through the months of July and August and September, the 
Great Plague raged more and more. Great fires were lighted 
in the streets, in the hope of stopping the infection; but there 
was a plague of rain, too, and it beat the fires out. At last, 
the winds which usually arise at that time of the year which is 
called the equinox, when day and night are of equal length all 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


371 


over the world, began to blow, and to purify the wretched 
town. The deaths began to decrease, the red crosses slowly to 
disappear, the fugitives to return, the shops to open, pale, fright¬ 
ened faces to be seen in the streets. The plague had been in 
every part of England; but in close and unwholesome London 
it had killed one hundred thousand people. 

All this time the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and 
as worthless as ever. All this time the debauched lords and 
gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed and drank, 
and loved and hated one another, according to their merry ways. 
So little humanity did the government learn from the late afflic¬ 
tion that one of the first things the Parliament did when it met 
at Oxford (being as yet afraid to come to London) was to make 
a law called the Eive-Mile Act, expressly directed against those 
poor ministers, who, in the time of the plague, had manfully 
come back to comfort the unhappy people. This infamous law, 
by forbidding them to teach in any school, or to come within 
five miles of any city, town, or village, doomed them to starva¬ 
tion and death. 

The fleet had been at sea and healthy. The king of Prance 
was now in alliance with the Dutch; though his navy was 
chiefly employed in looking on while the English and Dutch 
fought. The Dutch gained one victory, and the English gained 
another and a greater; and Prince Kupert, one of the English 
admirals, was out in the Channel one windy night, looking for 
the Prench admiral, with the intention of giving him something 
more to do than he had had yet, when the gale increased to a 
storm, and blew him into St. Helen’s. That night was the third 
of September, 1666; and that wind fanned the Great Fire of 
London. 

It broke out at a baker’s shop near London Bridge, on the 
spot on which the monument now stands as a remembrance of 
those raging flames. It spread and spread, and burned and 
burned, for three days. The nights were lighter than the days : 
in the daytime, there was an immense cloud of smoke; and in 
the night-time, there was a great tower of fire mounting up into 
the sky, which lighted the whole country landscape for ten 
miles round. Showers of hot ashes rose into the air, and fell 
on distant places ; flying sparks carried the conflagration to great 
distances, and kindled it in twenty new spots at a time; church 
steeples fell down with tremendous crashes; houses crumbled 


372 A child’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

into cinders by the hundred and the thousand. The summer 
had been intensely hot and dry ; the streets were very narrow, 
and the houses mostly built of wood and plaster. Nothing 
could stop the tremendous fire but the want of more houses to 
burn; nor did it stop until the whole way from the Tower to 
Temple Bar was a desert, composed of the ashes of thirteen 
thousand houses and eighty-nine churches. 

This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned great 
i loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out people, 
who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open night sky, 
or in hastily made huts of mud and straw, while the lanes 
and roads were rendered impassable by carts which had broken 
down as they tried to save their goods. But the fire was a great 
blessing to the city afterwards, for it arose from its ruins very 
much improved, — built more regularly, more widely, more 
cleanly and carefully, and therefore much more healthily. It 
might be far more healthy than it is, but there are some people 
in it still—even now at this time, nearly two hundred years 
later — so selfish, so pig-headed, and so ignorant, that I doubt 
if even another great fire would warm them up to do their duty. 

The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London in 
flames ; one poor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, even 
accused himself of having with his own hand fired the first 
house. There is no reasonable doubt, however, that the fire 
was accidental. An inscription on the monument long attrib¬ 
uted it to the Catholics; but it is removed now, and was always 
a malicious and stupid untruth. 

PART THE SECOND 

That the Merry Monarch might be very merry, indeed, in the 
merry times when his people were suffering under pestilence and 
fire, he drank and gambled and flung away among his favourites 
the money which the Parliament had voted for the war. The 
consequence of this was that the stout-hearted English sailors 
were merrily starving of want, and dying in the streets ; while 
the Dutch, under their admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, came 
into the river Thames, and up the river Medway as far as 
Upnor, burned the guard-ships, silenced the weak batteries, and 
did what they would to the English coast for six whole weeks. 
Most of the English ships that could have prevented them had 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


373 


neither powder nor shot on board ; in this merry reign, public 
officers made themselves as merry as the king did with the 
public money ; and when it was intrusted to them to spend in 
national defences or preparations, they put it into their own 
pockets with the merriest grace in the world. 

Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is 
usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. He 
was impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccessfully. 
The king then commanded him to withdraw from England and 
retire to France, which he did, after defending himself in writ¬ 
ing. He was no great loss at home, and died abroad some seven 
years afterwards. 

There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal 
Ministry, because it was composed of Lord Clifford, the Earl of 
Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham (a great rascal, and the 
king’s most powerful favourite), Lord Ashley, and the Duke of 
Lauderdale, — c. a. b. a. 1. As the French were making conquests 
in Flanders, the first Cabal proceeding was to make a treaty 
with the Dutch for uniting with Spain to oppose the French. 
It was no sooner made than the Merry Monarch, who always 
wanted to get money without being accountable to a Parliament 
for his expenditure, apologised to the king of France for having 
had anything to do with it, and concluded a secret treaty with 
him, making himself his infamous pensioner to the amount of two 
millions of livres down, and three millions more a year; and 
engaging to desert that very Spain, to make war against those 
very Dutch, and to declare himself a Catholic when a convenient 
time should arrive. This religious king had lately been crying 
to his Catholic brother on the subject of his strong desire to 
be a Catholic ; and now he merrily concluded this treasonable 
conspiracy against the country he governed, by undertaking to 
become one as soon as he safely could. For all of which, though 
he had had ten merry heads instead of one, he richly deserved 
to lose them by the headsman’s axe. 

As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if 
these things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and 
war was declared by France and England against the Dutch. 
But a very uncommon man, afterwards most important to Eng¬ 
lish history and to the religion and liberty of this land, arose 
among them, and for many long years defeated the whole pro¬ 
jects of France. This was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, 


374 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


son of the last Prince of Orange of the same name, who mar¬ 
ried the daughter of Charles the Pirst of England. He was a 
young man at this time, only just of age; but he was brave, 
cool, intrepid, and wise. His father had been so detested, that, 
upon his death, the Dutch had abolished the authority to which 
this son would have otherwise succeeded (Stadtholder it was 
called), and placed the chief power in the hands of John 
de Witt, who educated this young prince. How the prince 
became very popular, and John de Witt’s brother Cornelius 
was sentenced to banishment on a false accusation of conspiring 
to kill him. John went to the prison where he was, to take 
him away to exile, in his coach; and a great mob who col¬ 
lected on the occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both 
the brothers. This left the government in the hands of the 
prince, who was really the choice of the nation; and from 
this time he exercised it with the greatest vigour, against the 
whole power of Erance, under its famous generals, Conde and 
Turenne, and in support of the Protestant religion. It was full 
seven years before this war ended in a treaty of peace made at 
Nimeguen, and its details would occupy a very considerable 
space. It is enough to say that William of Orange established 
a famous character with the whole world; and that the Merry 
Monarch, adding to and improving on his former baseness, 
bound himself to do everything the king of Erance liked, and 
nothing the king of Erance did not like, for a pension of one 
hundred thousand pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. 
Besides this, the king of France, by means of his corrupt ambas¬ 
sador, — who wrote accounts of his proceedings in England, 
which are not always to be believed, I think, — bought our 
English members of Parliament, as he wanted them. So, in 
point of fact, during a considerable portion of this merry reign, 
the king of France was the real king of this country. 

But there was a better time to come; and it was to come 
(though his royal uncle little thought so) through that very 
William, Prince of Orange. He came over to England, saw 
Mary, the elder daughter of the Duke of York, and married her. 
We shall see by and by what came of that marriage, and why it 
is never to be forgotten. 

This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a Cath¬ 
olic. She and her sister Anne, also a Protestant, were the only 
survivors of eight children. Anne afterwards married George, 
Prince of Denmark, brother to the king of that country. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENCxLAND 


375 


Lest yon should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of sup¬ 
posing that he was even good-humoured (except when he had 
everything his own way), or that he was high-spirited and hon¬ 
ourable, I will mention here what was done to a member of the 
House of Commons, Sir John Coventry. He made a remark in 
a debate about taxing the theatres, which gave the king offence. 
The king agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been born 
abroad, and whom he had made Duke of Monmouth, to take the 
following merry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen 
armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a penknife. Like 
master, like man. The king’s favourite, the Duke of Bucking¬ 
ham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to murder 
the Duke of Ormond as he was returning home from a dinner; 
and that duke’s spirited son, Lord Ossory, was so persuaded of 
his guilt, that he said to him at court, even as he stood beside 
the king, “ My lord, I know very well that you are at the bot¬ 
tom of this late attempt upon my father. But I give you 
warning, if he ever come to a violent end, his blood shall be 
upon you, and wherever I meet you I will pistol you ! I will 
do so, though I find you standing behind the king’s chair; and 
I tell you this in his Majesty’s presence, that you may be quite 
sure of my doing what I threaten.” Those were merry times 
indeed. 

There was a fellow named Blood, who was seized for making, 
with two companions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, 
the globe, and sceptre, from the place where the jewels were 
kept in the Tower. This robber, who was a swaggering ruffian, 
being taken, declared that he was the man who had endeavoured 
to kill the Duke of Ormond, and that he had meant to kill the 
king too, but was overawed by the majesty of his appearance, 
when he might otherwise have done it, as he was bathing at 
Battersea. The king being but an ill-looking fellow, I don’t 
believe a word of this. Whether he was flattered, or whether 
he knew that Buckingham had really set Blood on to murder 
the duke, is uncertain. But it is quite certain that he pardoned 
this thief, gave him an estate of five hundred a year in Ireland 
(which had had the honour of giving him birth), and presented 
him at court to the debauched lords and the shameless ladies, 
who made a great deal of him, — as I have no doubt they would 
have made of the Devil himself, if the king had introduced 
him. 


376 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


Infamously pensioned as he was, the king still wanted money, 
and consequently was obliged to call Parliaments. In these, 
the great object of the Protestants was to thwart the Catholic 
Duke of York, who married a second time; his new wife being 
a young lady only fifteen years old, the Catholic sister of the 
Duke of Modena. In this they were seconded by the Protes¬ 
tant Dissenters, though to their own disadvantage ; since, to 
exclude Catholics from power, they were even willing to exclude 
themselves. The king’s object was to pretend to be a Protes¬ 
tant, while he was really a Catholic; to swear to the bishops 
that he was devoutly attached to the English Church, while he 
knew he had bargained it away to the king of France ; and 
by cheating and deceiving them, and all who were attached to 
royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to confess 
what a rascal he was. Meantime, the king of France, knowing 
his merry pensioner well, intrigued with the king’s opponents 
in Parliament, as well as with the king and his friends. 

The fears that the country had of the Catholic religion being 
restored, if the Duke of York should come to the throne, and 
the low cunning of the king in pretending to share their alarms, 
led to some very terrible results. A certain Dr. Tonge, a dull 
clergyman in the city, fell into the hands of a certain Titus 
Oates, a most infamous character, who pretended to have ac¬ 
quired among the Jesuits abroad a knowledge of a great plot 
for the murder of the king, and the re-establishment of the 
Catholic religion. Titus Oates, being produced by this unlucky 
Dr. Tonge and solemnly examined before the council, contra¬ 
dicted himself in a thousand ways, told the most ridiculous and 
improbable stories, and implicated Coleman, the secretary of 
the Duchess of York. How, although what he charged against 
Coleman was not true, and although you and I know very well 
that the real dangerous Catholic plot was that one with the 
king of France of which the Merry Monarch was himself the 
head, there happened to be found among Coleman’s papers 
some letters, in which he did praise the days of Bloody Queen 
Mary, and abuse the Protestant religion. This was great good 
fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirm him; but better still 
was in store. Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate who 
had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead near 
Primrose Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by 
the Catholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


377 


melancholy mad, and that he killed himself; hut he had a 
great Protestant funeral, and Titus was called the Saver of the 
Nation, and received a pension of twelve hundred pounds a 
year. 

As soon as Oates’s wickedness had met with this success, up 
started another villain, named William Bedloe, who, attracted 
by a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehension 
of the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged two 
Jesuits and some other persons with having committed it at the 
queen’s desire. Oates, going into partnership with this new 
informer, had the audacity to accuse the poor queen herself of 
high treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either 
of the two, and accused a Catholic banker, named Stayley, of 
having said that the king was the greatest rogue in the world 
(which would not have been far from the truth), and that he 
would kill him with his own hand. This banker being at once 
tried and executed, Coleman and two others were tried and 
executed. Then a miserable wretch named Prance, a Catholic 
silversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into con¬ 
fessing that he had taken part in Godfrey’s murder, and into 
accusing three other men of having committed it. Then five 
Jesuits were accused by Oates, Bedloe, and Prance together, 
and were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind of 
contradictory and absurd evidence. The queen’s physician and 
three monks were next put on their trial; but Oates and Bedloe 
had for the time gone far enough, and these four were acquitted. 
The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and 
so strong against the Duke of York, that James consented to 
obey a written order from his brother, and to go with his family 
to Brussels, provided that his rights should never be sacrificed 
in his absence to the Duke of Monmouth. The House of Com¬ 
mons, not satisfied with this as the king hoped, passed a bill 
to exclude the duke from ever succeeding to the throne. In 
return, the king dissolved the Parliament. He had deserted his 
old favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was now in the 
opposition. 

To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this 
merry reign would occupy a hundred pages. Because the peo¬ 
ple would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their 
solemn League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon 
them as make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons galloped 


378 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


through the country to punish the peasants for deserting the 
churches ; sons were hanged up at their fathers’ doors for 
refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed ; wives 
were tortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people 
were taken out of their fields and gardens, and shot on the pub¬ 
lic road, without trial; lighted matches were tied to the fingers 
of prisoners, and a most horrible torment, called the Boot, was 
invented, and constantly applied, which ground and mashed the 
victims’ legs with iron wedges. Witnesses were tortured as 
well as prisoners. All the prisons were full; all the gibbets 
were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated the 
whole country. In spite of all, the Covenanters were by no 
means to be dragged into the churches, and persisted in worship¬ 
ping God as they thought right. A body of ferocious Highland¬ 
ers, turned upon them from the mountains of their own country, 
had no greater effect than the English dragoons under Grahame 
of Claverhouse, the most cruel and rapacious of all their ene¬ 
mies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length and 
breadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and 
abetted all these outrages. But he fell at last; for when the 
injuries of the Scottish people were at their height, he was seen, 
in his coach-and-six, coming across a moor, by a body of men, 
headed by one John Balfour, who were waiting for another of 
their oppressors. Upon this they cried out that Heaven had 
delivered him into their hands, and killed him with many 
wounds. If ever a man deserved such a death, I think Arch¬ 
bishop Sharp did. 

It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch 
(strongly suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on, 
that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the Par¬ 
liament were willing to give him) sent down his son, the Duke 
of Monmouth, as commander-in-cliief, with instructions to attack 
the Scottish rebels, or Whigs, as they were called, whenever he 
came up with them. Marching with ten thousand men from 
Edinburgh, he found them, in number four or five thousand, 
drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, by the Clyde. They were soon 
dispersed ; and Monmouth showed a more humane character 
towards them than he had shown towards that member of Par¬ 
liament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife. 
But the Duke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe, and sent 
Claverhouse to finish them. 



BOTHWELL BRIDGE 






























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


379 


As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, the 
Duke of Monmouth became more and more popular. It would 
have been decent in the latter not to have voted in favour of 
the renewed bill for the exclusion of James from the throne; 
but he did so, much to the king’s amusement, who used to sit 
in the House of Lords, by the fire, hearing the debates, which 
he said were as good as a play. The House of Commons passed 
the bill by a large majority, and it was carried up to the House 
of Lords by Lord Bussell, one of the best of the leaders on 
the Protestant side. It was rejected there, chiefly because the 
bishops helped the king to get rid of it; and the fear of Catholic 
plots revived again. There had been another got up, by a fellow 
out of Newgate, named Dangerfield, which is more famous than 
it deserves to be, under the name of the Meal-Tub Plot. This 
jail-bird having been got out of Newgate by a Mrs. Cellier, a 
Catholic nurse, had turned Catholic himself, and pretended that 
he knew of a plot among the Presbyterians against the king’s 
life. This was very pleasant to the Duke of York, who hated 
the Presbyterians, who returned the compliment. He gave 
Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the king, his 
brother. But Dangerfield breaking down altogether in his 
charge, and being sent back to Newgate, almost astonished the 
duke out of his five senses by suddenly swearing that the 
Catholic nurse had put that false design into his head, and that 
what he really knew about was a Catholic plot against the 
king; the evidence of which would be found in some papers, 
concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier’s house. There they 
were of course, — for he had put them there himself, — and 
so the tub gave the name to the plot. But the nurse was 
acquitted, on her trial, and it came to nothing. 

Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and 
was strong against the succession of the Duke of York. The 
House of Commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may 
well suppose, by suspicions of the king’s conspiracy with the 
king of France, made a desperate point of the exclusion still, 
and were bitter against the Catholics generally. So unjustly 
bitter were they, I grieve to say, that they impeached the ven¬ 
erable Lord Stafford, a Catholic nobleman, seventy years old, of 
a design to kill the king. The witnesses were that atrocious 
Oates and two other birds of the same feather. He was found 
guilty, on evidence quite as foolish as it was false, and was 


380 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


beheaded on Tower Hill. The people were opposed to him 
when he first appeared upon the scaffold ; but when he had 
addressed them and shown them how innocent he was, and how 
wickedly he was sent there, their better nature was aroused, 
and they said, u We believe you, my lord. God bless you, my 
lord! ” 

The House of Commons refused to let the king have any 
money until he should consent to the Exclusion Bill; but as 
he could get it and did get it from his master, the king of 
Erance, he could afford to hold them very cheap. He called a 
Parliament at Oxford, to which he went down with a great 
show of being armed and protected, as if he were in danger of 
his life, and to which the opposition members also went armed 
and protected, alleging that they were in fear of the Papists, 
who were numerous among the king’s guards. However, they 
went on with the Exclusion Bill, and were so earnest upon it, 
that they would have carried it again, if the king had not 
popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled 
himself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber 
where the House of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. 
After which he scampered home, and the members of Par¬ 
liament scampered home, too, as fast as their legs could carry 
them. 

The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the 
law which excluded Catholics from public trust, no right what¬ 
ever to public employment. Nevertheless, he was openly 
employed as the king’s representative in Scotland, and there 
gratified his sullen and cruel nature to his heart’s content by 
directing the dreadful cruelties against the Covenanters. There 
were two ministers, named Cargill and Cameron, who had 
escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and who returned 
to Scotland, and raised the miserable but still brave and unsub¬ 
dued Covenanters afresh, under the name of Cameronians. As 
Cameron publicly posted a declaration that the king was a fore¬ 
sworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his unfortunate followers 
after he was slain in battle. The Duke of York, who was par¬ 
ticularly fond of the Boot, and derived great pleasure from 
having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people if 
they would cry on the scaffold, “ God save the king! ” But 
their relations, friends, and countrymen had been so barbarously 
tortured and murdered in this merry reign, that they preferred 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


381 


to die, and did die. The duke then obtained his merry brother’s 
permission to hold a Parliament in Scotland, which first, with 
most shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securing the 
Protestant religion against Popery, and then declared that no¬ 
thing must or should prevent the succession of the popish duke. 
After this double-faced beginning, it established an oath which 
no human being could understand, but which everybody was to 
take, as a proof that his religion was the lawful religion. The 
Earl of Argyle, taking it with the explanation that he did not 
consider it to prevent him from favouring any alteration, either 
in the church or state, which was not inconsistent with the 
Protestant religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high treason 
before a Scottish jury, of which the Marquis of Montrose was 
foreman, and was found guilty. He escaped the scaffold, for 
that time, by getting away, in the disguise of a page, in the 
train of his daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay. It was absolutely 
proposed, by certain members of the Scottish Council, that this 
lady should be whipped through the streets of Edinburgh. But 
this was too much even for the duke, who had the manliness 
then (he had very little at most times) to remark that English¬ 
men were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner. In 
those merry times, nothing could equal the brutal servility of 
the Scottish fawners but the conduct of similar degraded beings 
in England. 

After the settlement of these little affairs, the duke returned 
to England, and soon resumed his place at the council, and his 
office of high admiral, — all this by his brother’s favour, and 
in open defiance of the law. It would have been no loss to 
the country, if he had been drowned when his ship, in going to 
Scotland to fetch his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was 
lost with two hundred souls on board. But he escaped in a 
boat with some friends ; and the sailors were so brave and un¬ 
selfish, that, when they saw him rowing away, they gave three 
cheers, while they themselves were going down for ever. 

The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went 
to work to make himself despotic with all speed. Having had 
the villainy to order the execution of Oliver Plunket, Bishop of 
Armagh, falsely accused of a plot to establish Popery in that 
country by means of a French army, — the very thing this 
royal traitor was himself trying to do at home, — and having 
tried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury and failed, he turned his hand 


382 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


to controlling the corporations all over the country; because, if 
he could only do that, he could get what juries he chose, to 
bring in perjured verdicts, and could get what members he 
chose returned to Parliament. These merry times produced, 
and made Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, a drunken 
ruffian of the name of Jeffreys; a red-faced, swollen, bloated, 
horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a more 
savage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human 
breast. This monster was the Merry Monarch’s especial favour¬ 
ite ; and he testified his admiration of him by giving him a 
ring from his own finger, which the people used to call Judge 
Jeffreys’ Bloodstone. Him the king employed to go about and 
bully the corporations, beginning with London ; or, as Jeffreys 
himself elegantly called it, “ to give them a lick with the rough 
side of his tongue.” And he did it so thoroughly, that they 
soon became the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the 
kingdom, except the University of Oxford, which, in that re¬ 
spect, was quite pre-eminent and unapproachable. 

Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the king’s failure 
against him), Lord William Bussell, the Duke of Monmouth, 
Lord Howard, Lord Jersey, Algernon Sidney, John Hampden 
(grandson of the great Hampden), and some others used to hold 
a council together after the dissolution of the Parliament, 
arranging what it might be necessary to do, if the king carried 
his popish plot to the utmost height. Lord Shaftesbury, having 
been much the most violent of this party, brought two violent 
men into their secrets, — Bumsey, who had been a soldier in 
the republican army ; and West, a lawyer. These two knew 
an old officer of Cromwell’s, called Bumbold, who had married 
a maltster’s widow, and so had come into possession of a soli¬ 
tary dwelling called the Bye House, near Hoddesdon, in Hert¬ 
fordshire. Bumbold said to them what a capital place this 
house of his would be from which to shoot at the king, who 
often passed there going to and fro from Newmarket. They 
liked the idea and entertained it. But one of their body gave 
information; and they, together with Shepherd, a wine-mer¬ 
chant, Lord Bussell, Algernon Sidney, Lord Essex, Lord 
Howard, and Hampden, were all arrested. 

Lord Bussell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do 
so, being innocent of any wrong; Lord Essex might have 
easily escaped, but scorned to do so, lest his flight should pre- 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


383 


judice Lord Russell. But it weighed upon his mind that he 
had brought into their council Lord Howard, — who now 
turned a miserable traitor, — against a great dislike Lord Bus¬ 
sell had always had of him. He could not hear the reflection, 
and destroyed himself before Lord Bussell was brought to trial 
at the Old Bailey. 

He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having 
always been manful in the Protestant cause against the two 
false brothers, the one on the throne, and the other standing 
next to it. He had a wife, one of the noblest and best of 
women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, who comforted 
him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before he 
died, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her 
name imperishable. Of course, he was found guilty, and was 
sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln’s Inn-fields, not many 
yards from his own house. When he had parted from his 
children on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed 
with him until ten o’clock at night; and when their final 
separation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many 
times, he still sat for a long while in his prison talking of her 
goodness. Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly 
said, “ Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is 
a dull thing on a rainy day.” At midnight he went to bed, 
and slept till four ; even when his servant called him, he fell 
asleep again while his clothes were being made ready. He rode 
to the scaffold in his own carriage, attended by two famous 
clergymen, Tillotson and Burnet, and sang a psalm to himself 
very softly as he went along. He was as quiet and steady as 
if he had been going out for an ordinary ride. After saying 
that he was surprised to see so great a crowd, he laid down his 
head upon the block, as if upon the pillow of his bed, and had 
it struck off at the second blow. His noble wife was busy for 
him even then ; for that true-hearted lady printed and widely 
circulated his last words, of which he had given her a copy. 
They made the blood of all the honest men in England boil. 

The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very 
same day by pretending to believe that the accusation against 
Lord Bussell was true, and by calling the king, in a written 
paper, the Breath of their Nostrils and the Anointed of the 
Lord. This paper the Parliament afterwards caused to be 
burned by the common hangman; which I am sorry for, as I 


384 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


wish it had been framed and hung up in some public place, as 
a monument of baseness for the scorn of mankind. 

Next came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys 
presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with 
rage. “ I pray God, Mr. Sidney,” said this chief justice of a 
merry reign, after passing sentence, “ to work in you a temper 
fit to go to the other world, for I see you are not fit for this.” 
— “ My lord,” said the prisoner, composedly holding out his 
arm, u feel my pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thank 
Heaven I never was in better temper than I am now.” Alger¬ 
non Sidney was executed on Tower Hill, on the seventh of De¬ 
cember, 1683. He died a hero, and died, in his own words, 
“ For that good old cause in which he had been engaged from 
his youth, and for which God had so often and so wonderfully 
declared himself.” 

The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the 
Duke of York, very jealous, by going about the country in a 
royal sort of way, playing at the people’s games, becoming god¬ 
father to their children, and even touching for the king’s evil, 
or stroking the faces of the sick to cure them, — though, for 
the matter of that, I should say he did them about as much 
good as any crowned king could have done. His father had 
got him to write a letter confessing his having had a part in the 
conspiracy for which Lord Russell had been beheaded; but he 
was ever a weak man, and as soon as he had written it, he was 
ashamed of it and got it back again. For this he was banished 
to the Netherlands ; but he soon returned, and had an inter¬ 
view with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seem 
that he was coming into the Merry Monarch’s favour again, 
and that the Duke of York was sliding out of it, when death 
appeared to the merry galleries at Whitehall, and astonished 
the debauched lords and gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, 
very considerably. 

On Monday, the second of February, 1685, the merry pen¬ 
sioner and servant of the king of France fell down in a fit of 
apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case was hopeless, and on the 
Thursday he was told so. As he made a difficulty about taking 
the sacrament from the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of 
York got all who were present away from the bed, and asked 
his brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a Catholic 
priest. The king replied, “ For God’s sake, brother, do! ” 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


385 


The duke smuggled in, up the hack stairs, disguised in a wig 
and gown, a priest named Huddleston, who had saved the king’s 
life after the battle of Worcester, — telling him that this worthy 
man in the wig had once saved his body, and was now come to 
save his soul. 

The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died before 
noon on the next day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of 
the last things he said were of a human sort, and your remem¬ 
brance will give him the full benefit of them. When the queen 
sent to say she was too unwell to attend him, and to ask his 
pardon, he said, “ Alas, poor woman ! she beg ray pardon: I 
beg hers with all my heart. Take back that answer to her.” 
And he also said, in reference to Nell Gwyn, u Do not let poor 
Nelly starve.” 

He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth 
of his reign. 


386 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


CHAPTER XXXVI 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND 

King James the Second was a man so very disagreeable 
that even the best of historians has favoured his brother Charles, 
as becoming, by comparison, quite a pleasant character. The 
one object of his short reign was to re-establish the Catholic 
religion in England ; and this he doggedly pursued with such a 
stupid obstinacy that his career very soon came to a close. 

The first thing he did was to assure his council that he would 
make it his endeavour to preserve the government, both in 
Church and State, as it was by law established; and that he 
would always take care to defend and support the Church. 
Great public acclamations were raised over this fair speech ; and 
a great deal was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the 
word of a king which was never broken, by credulous people 
who little supposed that he had formed a secret council for Cath¬ 
olic affairs, of which a mischievous Jesuit, called Father Petre, 
w T as one of the chief members. With tears of joy in his eyes, 
he received, as the beginning of his pension from the king of 
France, five hundred thousand livres ; yet, with a mixture of 
meanness and arrogance that belonged to his contemptible charac¬ 
ter, he was always jealous of making some show of being inde¬ 
pendent of the king of France, while he pocketed his money. 
As — notwithstanding his publishing two papers in favour of 
Popery (and not likely to do it much service, I should think) 
written by the king, his brother, and found in his strong-box ; 
and his open display of himself attending mass — the Parlia¬ 
ment was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of 
money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what 
he pleased, and with a determination to do it. 

Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of 
Titus Oates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the 
coronation, and, besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced 
to stand twice in the pillory, to be whipped from Aldgate to 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


387 


Newgate one day, and from Newgate to Tyburn two days after¬ 
wards, and to stand in the pillory five times a year as long as 
he lived. This fearful sentence was actually inflicted on the 
rascal. Being unable to stand after his first flogging, he was 
dragged on a sledge from Newgate to Tyburn, and flogged as he 
was drawn along. He was so strong a villain that he did not 
die under the torture, but lived to be afterwards pardoned and 
rewarded, though not to be ever believed in any more. Danger- 
field, the only other one of that crew left alive, was not so for¬ 
tunate. He was almost killed by a whipping from Newgate to 
Tyburn ; and as if that were not punishment enough, a ferocious 
barrister of Grey’s Inn gave him a poke in the eye with his 
cane, which caused his death, — for which the ferocious bar¬ 
rister was deservedly tried and executed. 

As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth 
went from Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of 
Scottish exiles held there to concert measures for a rising in 
England. It was agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in 
Scotland, and Monmouth in England; and that two English¬ 
men should be sent with Argyle to be in his confidence, and 
two Scotchmen with the Duke of Monmouth. 

Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But two of 
his men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the gov¬ 
ernment became aware of his intention, and was able to act 
against him with such vigour as to prevent his raising more than 
two or three thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery 
cross, by trusty messengers, from clan to clan, and from glen to 
glen, as the custom then was when those wild people were to be 
excited by their chiefs. As he was moving towards Glasgow 
with his small force, he was betrayed by some of his followers, 
taken, and carried, with his hands tied behind his back, to his 
old prison in Edinburgh Castle. James ordered him to be exe¬ 
cuted, on his old, shamefully unjust sentence, within three 
days; and he appears to have been anxious that his legs should 
have been pounded with his old favourite, the Boot. However, 
the Boot was not applied; he was simply beheaded, and his 
head was set upon the top of Edinburgh jail. One of those 
Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old sol¬ 
dier, Rumbold, the master of the Bye House. He was sorely 
wounded, and within a week after Argyle had suffered with 
great courage, was brought up for trial, lest he should die, and 


388 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


disappoint the king. He, too, was executed, after defending 
himself with great spirit, and saying that he did not believe that 
God had made the greater part of mankind to carry saddles on 
their backs, and bridles in their mouths, and to be ridden by a 
few, booted and spurred for the purpose ; in which I thoroughly 
agree with Rumbold. 

The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and 
partly through idling his time away, was five or six weeks be¬ 
hind his friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset; having at 
his right hand an unlucky nobleman called Lord Grey of Werk, 
who of himself would have ruined a far more promising expedi¬ 
tion. He immediately set up his standard in the market-place, 
and proclaimed the king a tyrant and a popish usurper, and I 
know not what else; charging him, not only with what he had 
done, which was bad enough, but with what neither he nor any¬ 
body else had done, such as setting fire to London, and poison¬ 
ing the late king. Raising some four thousand men by these 
means, he marched on to Taunton, where there were many 
Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catho¬ 
lics. Here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, 
ladies waved a welcome to him from all the windows as he 
passed along the streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and 
every compliment and honour that could be devised was show¬ 
ered upon him. Among the rest, twenty young ladies came for¬ 
ward, in their best clothes, and in their brightest beauty, and 
gave him a Bible ornamented with their own fair hands, together 
with other presents. 

Encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself king, and 
went on to Bridgewater. But here, the government troops, 
under the Earl of Feversham, were close at hand ; and he was 
so dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends 
after all, that it was a question whether he should disband his 
army and endeavour to escape. It was resolved, at the instance 
of that unlucky Lord Grey, to make a night attack on the king’s 
army, as it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called Sedge- 
moor. The horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky 
lord, who was not a brave man. He gave up the battle almost 
at the first obstacle, which was a deep drain; and although the 
poor countrymen who had turned out for Monmouth fought 
bravely with scythes, poles, pitchforks, and such poor weapons 
as they had, they were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers, 


r - ,—' 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 
















A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


389 


and fled in all directions. When the Duke of Monmouth him¬ 
self fled, was not known in the confusion ; hut the unlucky Lord 
Grey was taken early next day, and then another of the party 
was taken, who confessed that he had parted from the duke 
only four hours before. Strict search being made, he was found 
disguised as a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern and nettles, 
with a few peas in his pocket which he had gathered in the 
fields to eat. The only other articles he had upon him were a 
few papers and little books ; one of the latter being a strange 
jumble, in his own waiting, of charms, songs, recipes, and pray¬ 
ers. He was completely broken. He wrote a miserable letter 
to the king, beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him. 
When he was taken to London, and conveyed bound into the 
king’s presence, he crawled to him on his knees, and made a 
most degrading exhibition. As James never forgave or relented 
towards anybody, he was not likely to soften towards the issuer 
of the Lyme proclamation, so he told the suppliant to prepare 
for death. 

On the fifteenth of July, 1685, this unfortunate favourite of 
the people was brought out to die on Tower Hill. The crowd 
was immense, and the tops of all the houses were covered with 
gazers. He had seen his wife, the daughter of the Duke of 
Buccleuch, in the Tower, and had talked much of a lady whom 
he loved far better,—the Lady Harriet Wentworth, — who 
was one of the last persons he remembered in his life. Before 
laying down his head upon the block, he felt the edge of the 
axe, and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp 
enough, and that the axe was not heavy enough. On the exe¬ 
cutioner replying that it was of the proper kind, the duke said, 
“ I pray you have a care, and do not use me so awkwardly as 
you used my Lord Bussell.” The executioner, made nervous 
by this, and trembling, struck once, and merely gashed him in the 
neck. Upon this, the Duke of Monmouth raised his head, and 
looked the man reproachfully in the face. Then he struck twice, 
and then thrice, and then threw down the axe, and cried out in 
a voice of horror that he could not finish that work. The 
sheriffs, .however, threatening him with what should be done to 
himself if he did not, he took it up again, and struck a fourth 
time and a fifth time. Then the wretched head at last fell off, 
and James, Duke of Monmouth, was dead, in the thirty-sixth 
year of his age. He was a showy, graceful man, with many 


390 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


popular qualities, and had found much favour in the open 
hearts of the English. 

The atrocities committed by the government which followed 
this Monmouth rebellion form the blackest and most lamentable 
page in English history. The poor peasants, having been dis¬ 
persed with great loss, and their leaders having been taken, one 
would think that the implacable king might have been satisfied. 
But no ; he let loose upon them, among other intolerable mom 
sters, a Colonel Kirk, who had served against the Moors, and 
whose soldiers — called by the people Kirk’s lambs, because 
they bore a lamb upon their flag, as the emblem of Christianity 
— were worthy of their leader. The atrocities committed by 
these demons in human shape are far too horrible to be related 
here. It is enough to say, that besides most ruthlessly murder¬ 
ing and robbing them, and ruining them by making them buy 
their pardons at the price of all they possessed, it was one 
of Kirk’s favourite amusements, as he and his officers sat 
drinking after dinner, and toasting the king, to have batches 
of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company’s 
diversion; and that when their feet quivered in the convulsions 
of death, he used to swear that they should have music to their 
dancing, and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets 
to play. The detestable king informed him, as an acknowledg¬ 
ment of these services, that he was u very well satisfied with 
his proceedings.” But the king’s great delight was in the pro¬ 
ceedings of Jeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the West 
with four other judges, to try persons accused of having had any 
share in the rebellion. The king pleasantly called this “ Jef¬ 
freys’ campaign.” The people down in that part of the coun¬ 
try remember it to this day as the Bloody Assize. 

It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, Mrs. 
Alicia Lisle, the widow of one of the judges of Charles the 
First (who had been murdered abroad by some royalist assas¬ 
sins), was charged with having given shelter in her house to 
two fugitives from Sedgemoor. Three times the jury refused 
to find her guilty, until Jeffreys bullied and frightened them 
into that false verdict. When he had extorted it from them, 
he said, “ Gentlemen, if I had been one of you, and she had 
been my own mother, I would have found her guilty,” — as I 
dare say he would. He sentenced her to be burned alive that 
very afternoon. The clergy of the cathedral and some others 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


391 


interfered in her favour, and she was. beheaded within a week. 
As a high mark of his approbation, the king made Jeffreys 
Lord Chancellor; and he then went on to Dorchester, to Exe¬ 
ter, to Taunton, and to Wells. It is astonishing, when we read 
of the enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast, to know 
that no one struck him dead on the judgment-seat. It was 
enough for any man or woman to he accused by an enemy, 
before Jeffreys, to he found guilty of high treason. One man 
who pleaded not guilty, he ordered to be taken out of court 
upon the instant, and hanged ; and this so terrified the prison¬ 
ers in general that they mostly pleaded guilty at once. At 
Dorchester alone, in the course of a few days, Jeffreys hanged 
eighty people; besides whipping, transporting, imprisoning, and 
selling as slaves, great numbers. He executed, in all, two 
hundred and fifty, or three hundred. 

These executions took place among the neighbours and 
friends of the sentenced in thirty-six towns and villages. The 
bodies were mangled, steeped in cauldrons of boiling pitch and 
tar, and hung up by the roadsides, in the streets, over the very 
churches. The sight and smell of heads and limbs, the hissing 
and bubbling of the infernal cauldrons, and the tears and terrors 
of the people, were dreadful beyond all description. One rus¬ 
tic, who was forced to steep the remains in the black pot, was 
ever afterwards called “Torn Boilman.” The hangman has 
ever since been called Jack Ketch, because a man of that name 
went hanging and hanging, all day long, in the train of Jeffreys. 
You will hear much of the horrors of the great French Devo¬ 
lution. Many and terrible they were, there is no doubt; but 
I know of nothing worse done by the maddened people of 
France, in that awful time, than was done by the highest judge 
in England, with the express approval of the king of England, 
in the Bloody Assize. 

Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for 
himself as of misery for others; and he sold pardons wholesale 
to fill his pockets. The king ordered, at one time, a thousand 
prisoners to be given to certain of his favourites, in order that 
they might bargain with them for their pardons. The young 
ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible were bestowed 
upon the maids of honour at court; and those precious ladies 
made very hard bargains with them indeed. When the Bloody 
Assize was at its most dismal height, the king was diverting him- 


392 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


self with horse-races in the very place where Mrs. Lisle had been 
executed. When Jeffreys had done his worst, and came home 
again, he was particularly complimented in the “Loyal Gazette; ” 
and when the king heard that, through drunkenness and raging, 
he was very ill, his odious majesty remarked that such another 
man could not easily be found in England. Besides all this, a 
former sheriff of London, named Cornish, was hanged within 
sight of his own house, after an abominably conducted trial, for 
having had a share in the Bye House Plot, on evidence given 
by Bumsey, which that villain was obliged to confess was 
directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of 
Lord Bussell. And on the very same day, a worthy widow, 
named Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned alive at Tyburn, for hav¬ 
ing sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against her. 
She settled the fuel about herself with her own hands, so that 
the flames should reach her quickly; and nobly said, with 
her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of 
God to give refuge to the outcast, and not to betray the 
wanderer. 

After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilat¬ 
ing, exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of 
his unhappy subjects, the king not unnaturally thought that he 
could do whatever he would. So he went to work to change 
the religion of the country with all possible speed; and what 
he did was this. 

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test 
Act — which prevented the Catholics from holding public em¬ 
ployments — by his own power of dispensing with the penalties. 
He tried it in one case; and eleven of the twelve judges decid¬ 
ing in his favour, he exercised it in three others, being those of 
three dignitaries of University College, Oxford, who had become 
Papists, and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned. He 
revived the hated Ecclesiastical Commission, to get rid of Comp¬ 
ton, Bishop of London, who manfully opposed him. He soli¬ 
cited the Pope to favour England with an ambassador; which 
the Pope (who was a sensible man then) rather unwillingly did. 
He flourished Father Petre before the eyes of the people on all 
possible occasions. He favoured the establishment of convents 
in several parts of London. He was delighted to have the 
streets, and even the court itself, filled with monks and friars 
in the habits of their orders. He constantly endeavoured to 



A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


393 


make Catholics of the Protestants about him. He held private 
interviews, which he called “ closetings,” with those members 
of Parliament who held offices, to persuade them to consent to 
the design he had in view. When they did not consent, they 
were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their places were 
given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers from the 
army, by every means in his power, and got Catholics into their 
places too. He tried the same thing with the corporations, and 
also (though not so successfully) with the lord lieutenants of 
counties. To terrify the people into the endurance of all these 
measures, he kept an army of fifteen thousand men encamped 
on Hounslow Heath, where mass was openly performed in the 
general’s tent, and where priests went among the soldiers, en¬ 
deavouring to persuade them to become Catholics. Por circulat¬ 
ing a paper among those men advising them to be true to their 
religion, a Protestant clergyman, named Johnson, the chaplain 
of the late Lord Russell, was actually sentenced to stand three 
times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from Newgate to 
Tyburn. He dismissed his own brother-in-law from his council 
because he was a Protestant, and made a privy councillor of the 
before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed Ireland over to 
Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a worthless, dissolute knave, 
who played the same game there for his master, and who played 
the deeper game for himself of one day putting it under the 
protection of the French king. In going to these extremities, 
every man of sense and judgment among the Catholics, from the 
Pope to a porter, knew that the king was a mere bigoted fool, 
who would undo himself and the cause he sought to advance; 
but he was deaf to all reason; and, happily for England ever 
afterwards, went tumbling off his throne in his own blind way. 

A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted 
blunderer little expected. He first found it out in the Univer¬ 
sity of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic a dean at Oxford, 
without any opposition, he tried to make a monk a master of 
arts at Cambridge; which attempt the university resisted, and 
defeated him. He then went back to his favourite Oxford. 
On the death of the president of Magdalen College, he com¬ 
manded that there should be elected to succeed him, one Mr. 
Anthony Farmer, whose only recommendation was, that he was 
of the king’s religion. The university plucked up courage at 
last, and refused. The king substituted another man, and it 


394 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


still refused, resolving to stand by its own election of a Mr. 
Hough. The dull tyrant, upon this, punished Mr. Hough, and 
five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be expelled, and de¬ 
clared incapable of holding any church preferment; then he 
proceeded to what he supposed to be his highest step, but to 
what was, in fact, his last plunge headforemost in his tumble 
off his throne. 

He had issued a declaration that there should be no religious 
tests or penal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more easily; 
but the Protestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, had 
gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and 
nail. The king and Pather Petre now resolved to have this 
read, on a certain Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it 
to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. The latter 
took counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in 
disgrace; and they resolved that the declaration should not be 
read, and that they would petition the king against it. The 
archbishop himself wrote out the petition ; and six bishops went 
into the king’s bedchamber the same night to present it, to his 
infinite astonishment. Next day was the Sunday fixed for the 
reading, and it was only read by two hundred clergymen out of 
ten thousand. The king resolved, against all advice, to prose¬ 
cute the bishops in the Court of King’s Bench; and within 
three weeks they were summoned before the Privy Council, and 
committed to the Tower. As the six bishops were taken to 
that dismal place by water, the people, who were assembled in 
immense numbers, fell upon their knees and wept for them, 
and prayed for them. When they got to the Tower, the officers 
and soldiers on guard besought them for their blessing. While 
they were confined there, the soldiers every day drank to their 
release with loud shouts. When they were brought up to the 
Court of King’s Bench for their trial, which the attorney-general 
said was for the high offence of censuring the government, and 
giving their opinion about affairs of state, they were attended 
by similar multitudes, and surrounded by a throng of noblemen 
and gentlemen. When the jury were out at seven o’clock at 
night to consider of their verdict, everybody (except the king) 
knew that they would rather starve than yield to the king’s 
brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a verdict for his 
customer. When they came into court next morning, after 
resisting the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not guilty, 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


395 


such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall as it had never heard 
before; and it was passed on among the people away to Temple 
Bar, and away again to the Tower. It did not pass only to the 
east, hut passed to the west too, until it reached the camp at 
Hounslow, where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and 
echoed it. And still, when the dull king, who was then with 
Lord Feversham, heard the mighty roar, asked in alarm what it 
was, and was told that it was “ nothing hut the acquittal of the 
bishops,” he said, in his dogged way, “ Call you that nothing ? 
It is so much the worse for them.” 

Between the petition and the trial the queen had given birth 
to a son, which Father Petre rather thought was owing to St. 
Winifred. But I doubt if St. Winifred had much to do with 
it as the king’s friend, inasmuch as the entirely new prospect of 
a Catholic successor (for both the king’s daughters were Protes¬ 
tants) determined the Earls of Shrewsbury, Danby, and Devon¬ 
shire, Lord Lumley, the Bishop of London, Admiral Bussell, 
and Colonel Sidney, to invite the Prince of Orange over to Eng¬ 
land. The Boyal Mole, seeing his danger at last, made, in his 
fright, many great concessions, besides raising an army of forty 
thousand men; but the Prince of Orange was not a man for 
James the Second to cope with. His preparations were extraor¬ 
dinarily vigorous, and his mind was resolved. 

For a fortnight after the prince was ready to sail for England, 
a great wind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet. 
Even when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it was dispersed by 
a storm, and was obliged to put back to refit. At last, on the 
first of November, 1688, the Protestant east wind, as it was long 
called, began to blow ; and on the third, the people of Dover and 
the people of Calais saw a fleet twenty miles long sailing gal¬ 
lantly by, between the two places. On Monday, the fifth, it 
anchored at Torbay in Devonshire; and the prince, with a 
splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into Exeter. 
But the people in that western part of the country had suffered 
so much in the Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart. Few 
people joined him; and he began to think of returning, and 
publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as 
his justification for having come at all. At this crisis some of 
the gentry joined him; the royal army began to falter ; an 
engagement was signed, by which all who set their hands to it 
declared that they would support one another in defence of the 




396 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


laws and liberties of the three kingdoms, of the Protestant reli¬ 
gion, and of the Prince of Orange. From that time the cause 
received no check ; the greatest towns in England began, one 
after another, to declare for the prince; and he knew that it 
was all safe with him when the University of Oxford offered to 
melt down its plate, if he wanted any money. 

By this time the king was running about in a pitiable way, 
touching people for the king’s evil in one place, reviewing his 
troops in another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. The 
young prince was sent to Portsmouth, Father Petre went off 
like a shot to France, and there was a general and swift disper¬ 
sal of all the priests and friars. One after another, the king’s 
most important officers and friends deserted him, and went over 
to the prince. In the night his daughter Anne fled from 
Whitehall Palace ; and the Bishop of London, who had once 
been a soldier, rode before her with a drawn sword in his hand, 
and pistols at his saddle. “ God help me,” cried the miserable 
king; “ my very children have forsaken me.” In his wildness, 
after debating with such lords as were in London, whether he 
should or should not call a Parliament, and after naming three 
of them to negotiate with the prince, he resolved to fly to 
France. He had the little Prince of Wales brought back from 
Portsmouth ; and the child and the queen crossed the river to 
Lambeth in an open boat, on a miserable wet night, and got 
safely away. This was on the night of the ninth of December. 

At one o’clock on the morning of the eleventh, the king, 
who had, in the mean time, received a letter from the Prince of 
Orange, stating his objects, got out of bed, told Lord Northum¬ 
berland, who lay in his room, not to open the door until the 
usual hour in the morning, and went down the back stairs (the 
same I suppose by which the priest in the wig and gown had 
come up to his brother), and crossed the river in a small boat, 
sinking the great seal of England by the way. Horses having 
been provided, he rode, accompanied by Sir Edward Hales, to 
Feversham, where he embarked in a custom-house hoy. The 
master of this hoy, wanting more ballast, ran into the Isle of 
Sheppy to get it, where the fishermen and smugglers crowded 
about the boat, and informed the king of their suspicions that 
he was a “ hatchet-faced Jesuit.” As they took his money, 
and would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that 
the Prince of Orange wanted to take his life ; and he began to 












wAPPING — OLD STAIRS 


























A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


397 


scream for a boat, — and then to cry, because he had lost a 
piece of wood on his ride which he called a fragment of our 
Saviour’s cross. He put himself into the hands of the lord 
lieutenant of the county, and his detention was made known to 
the Prince of Orange at Windsor, — who, only wanting to get 
rid of him, and not caring where he went, so that he went 
away, was very much disconcerted that they did not let him go. 
However, there was nothing for it but to have him brought 
back, with some state in the way of Life-Guards, to Whitehall. 
And as soon as he got there, in his infatuation, he heard mass, 
and set a Jesuit to say grace at his public dinner. 

The people had been thrown into the strangest state of con¬ 
fusion by his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the 
Irish part of the army were going to murder the Protestants. 
Therefore, they set the bells a ringing, and lighted watch-fires, 
and burned Catholic chapels, and looked about in all directions 
for Father Petre and the Jesuits, while the Pope’s ambassador 
was running away in the dress of a footman. They found no 
Jesuits; but a man, who had once been a frightened witness 
before Jeffreys in court, saw a swollen drunken face looking 
through a window down at Wapping, which he well remem¬ 
bered. The face was in a sailor’s dress ; but he knew it to be 
the face of that accursed judge, and he seized him. The people, 
to their lasting honour, did not tear him to pieces. After 
knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basest 
agonies of terror, to the lord mayor, who sent him, at his own 
shrieking petition, to the Tower for safety. There he died. 

Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bon¬ 
fires and made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be glad 
to have the king back again. But his stay was very short; for 
the English guards were removed from Whitehall, Dutch guards 
were marched up to it, and he was told by one of his late min¬ 
isters that the prince would enter London next day, and he had 
better go to Liam. He said Ham was a cold, damp place, and 
he would rather go to Bochester. He thought himself very 
cunning in this, as he meant to escape from Bochester to 
France. The Prince of Orange and his friends knew that per¬ 
fectly well, and desired nothing more. So he went to Graves¬ 
end, in his royal barge, attended by certain lords, and watched 
by Dutch troops, and pitied by the generous people, who were 
far more forgiving than he had ever been, when they saw him 


398 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


in his humiliation. On the night of the twenty-third of De¬ 
cember, not even then understanding that everybody wanted to 
get rid of him, he went out absurdly, through his Rochester 
garden, down to the Medway, and got away to France, where 
he rejoined the queen. 

There had been a council, in his absence, of the lords and the 
authorities of London. When the prince came, on the day 
after the king’s departure, he summoned the lords to meet him, 
and soon afterwards, all those who had served in any of the 
Parliaments of King Charles the Second. It was finally resolved 
by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct 
of King James the Second ; that it was inconsistent with the 
safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to he governed 
by a popish prince ; that the Prince and Princess of Orange 
should be king and queen during their lives and the life of the 
survivor of them ; and that their children should succeed them, 
if they had any. That if they had none, the Princess Anne 
and her children should succeed; that if she had none, the heirs 
of the Prince of Orange should succeed. 

On the thirteenth of January, 1689, the prince and princess, 
sitting on a throne in Whitehall, bound themselves to these 
conditions. The Protestant religion was established in Eng¬ 
land, and England’s great and glorious revolution was complete. 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


399 


CHAPTER XXXVII 

CONCLUSION 

I have now arrived at the close of my little history. The 
events which succeeded the famous revolution of 1688 would 
neither be easily related nor easily understood in such a book 
as this. 

William and Mary reigned together five years. After the 
death of his good wife, William occupied the throne alone for 
seven years longer. During his reign, on the sixteenth of Sep¬ 
tember, 1701, the poor weak creature who had once been James 
the Second of England, died in France. In the mean time he 
had done his utmost (which was not much) to cause William to 
be assassinated, and to regain his lost dominions. James’s son 
was declared, by the French king, the rightful king of Eng¬ 
land ; and was called in France The Chevalier St. George, and 
in England The Pretender. Some infatuated people in Eng¬ 
land, and particularly in Scotland, took up The Pretender’s cause 
from time to time, — as if the country had not had Stuarts 
enough ! — and many lives were sacrificed, and much misery was 
occasioned. King William died on Sunday, the seventh of 
March, 1702, of the consequences of an accident occasioned by 
his horse stumbling with him. He was always a brave, patri¬ 
otic prince, and a man of remarkable abilities. His manner 
was cold, and he made but few friends; but he had truly loved 
his queen. When he was dead, a lock of her hair and a ring 
was found tied with a black ribbon round his left arm. 

He was succeeded by the Princess Anne, a popular queen, who 
reigned twelve years. In her reign, in the month of May, 1707, 
the union between England and Scotland was effected, and the 
two countries were incorporated under the name of Great 
Britain. Then, from the year 1714 to the year 1830, reigned 
the four Georges. 

It was in the reign of George the Second, 1745, that The 
Pretender did his last mischief, and made his last appearance. 


400 


A CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


^7 

7s 


Being an old man by that time, he and the Jacobites — as his 
friends were called — put forward his son, Charles Edward,- 
known as The Young Chevalier. The Highlanders of Scotland, 
an extremely troublesome and wrong-headed race on the subject 
of the Stuarts, espoused his cause, and he joined them ; and 
there was a Scottish rebellion to-make him king, in which many 
gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It was a hard 
matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again, with a high 
price on his head ; but the Scottish people were extraordinarily 
faithful to him, and, after undergoing many romantic adventures, 
not unlike those- of Charles the Second, he escaped to France. 
A number of charming stories and delightful songs arose out of 
the Jacobite feelings, and belong to the Jacobite times. Other¬ 
wise I think the Stuarts were a public nuisance altogether. 

It was in the reign of George the Third that England lost 
North America, by persisting in taxing her without her own 
consent. That immense country, made independent under 
Washington, and left to itself, became the United States, one 
of the greatest nations of the earth. In these times in which 
I write, it is honourably remarkable for protecting its subjects, 
wherever they may travel, with a dignity and a determination 
which is a model for England. Between you and me, England 
has rather lost ground in this respect since the days of Oliver 
Cromwell. 

The union of Great Britain with Ireland — which had been 

i 

getting on very ill by itself — took place in the reign of George 
the Third, on the second of July, 1788. 

William the Fourth succeeded George the Fourth, in the year 
1830, and reigned seven years. Queen Victoria, his niece, the 
only child of the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George the 
Third, came to the throne on the twentieth of June, 1837. 
She was married to Prince Albert of Saxe Gotha on the tenth 
of February, 1840. She is very good, and much beloved. So 
I end, like the crier, with 



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i 


God Save the Queen ! 










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